CRITICAL THINKING,

THOUGHTFUL WRITIN(
*-; ;- f.uw.t.-/' '-^SsJ ?■

n Rhetoric
ixj ith

Readings

JOHN CHAFFEE

Christine
IT! c nicihon

Stout
 THE
THINKING — WRITING
MODEL
Critical Thinking,
Thoughtful Writing:
A Rhetoric with Readings
Critical Thinking,
Thoughtful Writing:
A Rhetoric with Readings

John Chaffee, Ph.D.

Director, NY Center for Critical Thinking and Language Learning
LaGuardia College, City University of New York

Christine McMahon
Barbara Stout
English Department, Montgomery College

Houghton Mifflin Company boston newyork

For Jessie and Joshua

Senior Sponsoring Editor Suzanne Phelps Weir

Senior Associate Editor Janet Edmonds
Associate Project Editor Gabrielle Stone
Senior Production/Design Coordinator Jill Haber
Senior Manufacturing Coordinator Sally Culler
Senior Marketing Manager Nancy Lyman

Acknowledgmen ts
Cover Designer: Linda Manly Wade
Cover Image: The Discs, 1911-1912 (oil on canvas) by Franz Kupka
(1871-1957). Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris/Bridgeman Art Library.
Photo by Peter Willi.
Photo Researcher: Linda Sykes
Back Cover Photo: Jessie Chaffee

(Acknowledgments continue on page 533.)

Copyright © 1999 by John Chaffee. All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
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Printed in the U.S.A.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 98-72008

ISBN: 0-395-73766-4

3456789-CS-02 01 00 99
Contents

PREFACE xvii

PART ONE

Understanding the Tools of Thinking and Writing

CHAPTER 1

Thinking Through Writing 2

The Relationship Between Thinkins and Writing

The Thinking<->Writing Model
Thinking and Writing in College 2
Reading, Writing, and Thinking 3
Becoming a Thoughtful Writer 4
Thinking and Writing Creatively 6
The Thinking^Writing Model 6
Dynamic Relationships 7
The Thinking-^Writing Model: Outer Circle 10
Purpose 10
Audience 10
Subject 11
Writer 11
The Thinking-^Writing Model: Second Circle 12
Writing Thoughtfully, Thinking Creatively, Thinking Critically 12
The Thinking^Writing Model: Third Circle 12
Activities of People’s Writing Processes 12
Generating Ideas 13
Some Strategies for Generating Ideas 13
Defining a Focus 17
Organizing Ideas 17
vi Contents

Drafting 17
Revising 18
Collaborating 19
The Center 19
Thinking and Writing as a Way of Living 19
y

CHAPTER 2

Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully 21

Critical Thinking Focus: Thinking about thinking
Writing Focus: Reflecting on experience
Reading Theme: Experiences which affected beliefs
Writing Project: Recalling the impact of experience on a belief

Developing Insight into Thinking and Writing 21

Thinking Actively and Writing 22
Influences on Your Thinking 23
Ways to Approach Writing 26
Thinking Independently 26
Viewing Situations from Different Perspectives 29
Supporting Diverse Perspectives with Reasons and Evidence 32
Readings About Experiences That Affected Beliefs 35
from The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X with Alex Haley 35
Handed My Own Life by Annie Dillard 37
The End of My Childhood by N. Scott Momaday 39
from Independence and the Inward T by Peter J. Rondinone 41
Writing Project 47
THE WRITING PROCESS 48
STUDENT WRITING 51

CHAPTER 3

Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively 54

Critical Thinking Focus: The qualities of a creative thinker

Writing Focus: Generating original ideas
Reading Theme: The creative thinking process
Writing Project: Imagining your life lived more creatively
 Contents vii

Writing Creatively 54
Being Creative in Topic Selection 55
Being Creative in Generating Ideas, Researching, and Drafting 56
Being Creative in Using Specific Details and Examples 57
Being Creative with Introductions and Conclusions 58
Thinking Creatively 59
Living Creatively 60
Becoming More Creative 64
Understanding the Creative Process 65
Understand and Trust the Creative Process 65
Eliminate the “Voice of Judgment” 66
Establish a Creative Environment 67
Make Creativity a Priority 68
Examining Creativity 68
from Pizza Tiger by Tom Monaghan with Robert Anderson 68
from Perfecting Our Strategy by Pauli Murray 70
from Unended Quest by Karl Popper 72
from Original Spin by Lesley Dormen and Peter Edidin 76
Writing Project 84
THE WRITING PROCESS 86
STUDENT WRITING 88

CHAPTER 4

Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully 90

Critical Thinking Focus: Decision making

Writing Focus: Making decisions about drafts
Reading Themes: People making decisions; writers thinking about revision
Writing Project: Analyzing a decision to be made

Thinking Critically and Revising 90

Making Decisions 91
An Organized Approach to Making Decisions 92
Step 1: Define the Decision Clearly 92
Step 2: Consider All Possible Choices 92
Step 3: Gather All Relevant Information and Evaluate the Pros and Cons 93
Step 4.- Select the Choice That Seems Best Suited to the Situation 94
viii Contents

Step 5: Implement a Plan of Action and Then Monitor the Results

Making Necessary Adjustments 95
Applying the Method for Making Decisions 96
from The Joy Luck Club, The Red Candle by Amy Tan 96
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost 109
Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 110
Specific Choices at Several Levels 111
from The Maker's Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts
by Donald M. Murray 113
from Writing with a Word Processor by William Zinsser 117
from How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words by Paul Roberts 122
Writing Project 133
THE WRITING PROCESS 134
STUDENT WRITING 138

CHAPTER 5

Language and Thought — Writing Precisely 141

Critical Thinking Focus: Language as a system
Writing Focus: Using language to clarify thinking
Reading Theme: Essays about language
Writing Projects: Experience with language

Understanding and Using Language 141

The Development of Language 142
The Lord's Prayer 143
The Symbolic Nature of Language 144
Sounds 145
Words 145
Semantic Meaning 147
Perceptual Meaning 147
Syntactic Meaning 148
Pragmatic Meaning 149
Using Language Effectively 150
Using Sentence Structure to Support Meaning 150
Sentence Structure: The Basics 151
Simple Sentences 152
Coordinate and Subordinate Sentences 153
Residents and Tourists Cram K'Port for Memorial 155
 Contents ix

Reading and Analyzing the Work of Others 158

from Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon 158
Using Language to Clarify Thinking 160
Improving Vague Language 161
Improving Ambiguous Language 165
Thinking Passage: The Crash of Avianca Flight 52 166
An Account of Avianca Flight 52 166
Using Figurative Language 167
Distinguishing Similes and Metaphors 169
from I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr. 170
Using Language in Social Contexts 174
Language Styles 174
Slang 175
Jargon 176
Dialects 176
Thinking Passage: Gender Differences in Language 178
from Sex, Lies, and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to
Talk to Each Other? by Deborah Tannen 179
Using Language to Influence 184
Euphemistic Language 184
from Separation Anxiety by Bob Herbert 186
Emotive Language 186
from On Racist Speech by Charles R. Lawrence III 190
from Free Speech on the Campus by Nat Hentoff 194
Writing Project 198
THE WRITING PROCESS 200
STUDENT WRITING 202
Equal to a Pebble by Roberto Obregon, translated by Zoe Anglesey 204

PART TWO

Thinking and Writing to Show Relationships 205

CHAPTER 6

Exploring Relationships in Space and Time — Writing to Show

Observations and Sequences 206

Critical Thinking Focus: Understanding perceptions

Contents

Writins Focus: Detail and order in descriptions and chronologies

Reading Theme: Depicting objects and experiences
Writing Project: Narrative which illuminates an issue in society

Experiencing, Perceiving, and Thinking Critically 206

Thinking Critically About Perceptions 207
Actively Selecting, Organizing, and Interpreting Sensations 209
Differences in People’s Perceptions 211
Writing Thoughtfully About Sensory Perceptions 212
Woodworking Joints 214
from The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday 214
Writing Thoughtfully About Perceptions of Sequences 217
Chronological Relationships 217
from Back, But Not Home by Maria Muniz 218
Process Relationships 220
from We Are Breaking the Silence About Death by Daniel Goleman 222
Writing Project 228
THE WRITING PROCESS 230
STUDENT WRITING 233

CHAPTER 7

Exploring Comparative Relationships — Writing About

Perspectives 235

Critical Thinking Focus: Critically evaluating perceptions

Writing Focus: Comparing and contrasting
Reading Theme: Recognizing differing perspectives
Writing Project: Critically evaluating different perspectives on an issue
or event

Thinking Critically About Differing Perceptions 235

Selecting Perceptions 237
Organizing Perceptions 238
Interpreting Perceptions 239
from Two Ways of Viewing the River by Mark Twain 240
Five Accounts of the Assassination of Malcolm X 241
Seven Accounts of Events at Tiananmen Square, 1989 245
Shaping and Changing Perceptions 249
 Contents

Thinking Critically About Perceptions 251

from Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America by Benjamin
Franklin 254
from The Soul of the Indian The Great Mystery by Charles Alexander
Eastman 258
from Women's Reality: An Emerging Female System in a White Male
Society by Anne Wilson Schaef 263
from America Revised by Frances FitzGerald 266
Writing Thoughtfully About Perspectives 269
Comparative Relationships 270
Analogical Relationships 272
Writing Project 275
THE WRITING PROCESS 276
STUDENT WRITING 280

CHAPTER 8

Exploring Causal Relationships — Writing to Analyze

Causes 284

Critical Thinking Focus: Causal reasoning

Writing Focus: Presenting causal reasoning
Reading Theme: Ecological relationships
Writing Project: Analyzing causal relationships of a recent event

Determining Causa! Relationships 284

Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 285
Causal Chains 286
Contributory Causes 288
Interactive Causes 289
Sufficient Cause and Necessary Condition 292
Immediate and Remote Causes 292
from Holy Water by Joan Didion 293
from The Last Days of Florida Bay by Carl Hiaasen 298
from Coastal Alert by Dwight Holing 299
from This Land Is Your Land by Jon Naar and Alex J. Naar 302
Thinking Critically About Causal Fallacies 306
Questionable Cause 307
xii Contents

Misidentification of the Cause 307

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc 308
Slippery Slope 308
Causal Claims 309
Writing Thoughtfully About Causal Relationships 310
Writing Project 312
THE WRITING PROCESS 313
STUDENT WRITING 317

CHAPTER 9

Forming Concepts — Writing to Classify and Define 321

Critical Thinking Focus: The conceptualizing process
Writing Focus: Defining and applying concepts
Reading Theme: Gender issues
Writing Project: Defining an important concept

Thinking Critically About Concepts 321

What Are Concepts? 322
The Importance of Concepts 324
The Structure of Concepts 325
The Process of Classifying 325
Forming Concepts 327
Applying Concepts 330
Determining the Requirements of a Concept 331
Analyzing Complex Concepts 332
from Femininity by Susan Brownmiller 333
from Standing His Ground by Michael Norman 337
from Ain't I a Woman? by Sojourner Truth 340
from Men and Their Hidden Feelings by Richard Cohen 341
from How Friendship Was Feminized by Carol Tavris 343
Using Concepts to Classify 345
Defining Concepts 347
Defining a Concept 348
from What Is Religion? by Frederick J. Strong, Charles L. Lloyd, and
Jay T. Allen 350
from What Is Poverty? by Jo Goodwin Parker 355
Writing Thoughtfully to Define Concepts 359
 Contents xiii

Writing Project 361

THE WRITING PROCESS 362

STUDENT WRITING 366

PART THREE

Thinking and Writing to Explore Issues and Take

Positions 369
CHAPTER 10

Believing and Knowing — Writing to Analyze 370

Critical Thinking Focus: Analyzing beliefs and their accuracy
Writing Focus: Evaluating evidence
Reading Theme: The media: Shaping our thinking
Writing Project: Analyzing influences on beliefs

Thinking and Writing Critically About Beliefs 370

The Nature of Beliefs 371
Four Kinds of Beliefs 372
from Brother, Don't Spare a Dime by L. Christopher Await 374
The Allesandros by Jonathan Kozol 376
Beliefs Based on Indirect Experience 380
Evaluating Information and Sources 381
How Reliable Is the Source? 382
How Knowledgeable or Experienced Is the Source? 382
Was the Source of the Information Able to Make Accurate Observations? 382
How Reputable Is the Source? 383
Believing and Knowing 384
Is the Earth Round or Flat? by Alan Lightman 385
Knowledge and Truth 387
Understanding Relativism 388
Understanding Falsifiable Beliefs 388
Four Accounts of the Battle of Lexington 390
Media and Truth 391
from Life According to TV by Harry Waters 391
from False Truth and the Future of the World by Cynthia Crossen 396
Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs 403
xiv Contents

Reporting Factual Information 405

Inferring 407
from Evolution as Fact and Theory by Stephen Jay Gould 412
Judging 418
Differences in Judgments 419
Distinguishing Reports, Inferences, and Judgments 420
Beliefs and Your Writing 421
Writing Project 423
THE WRITING PROCESS 425
STUDENT WRITING 428

CHAPTER 11

Solving Problems — Writing to Propose Solutions 430

Critical Thinking Focus: The problem-solving model
Writing Focus: Proposing solutions
Reading Theme: Solving a social problem
Writing Project: Applying the problem-solving model

Writing to Propose Solutions 430

Thinking Critically About Solving Problems 431
The Problem-Solving Model in Detail 432
What Is the Problem? 433
What are the Alternatives? 433
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Each Alternative? 433
What Is the Solution? 433
How Well Is the Solution Working? 434
Solving Complex Problems 434
Accepting the Problem 437
Step 1: What Is the Problem? 438
Step 1 A: What do I know about the situation? 439
Step 1B: What results am I aiming for in this situation? 439
Step 1C: How can I define the problem? 440
Step 2: What Are the Alternatives? 441
Step 2A: What are the boundaries of the problem situation? 441
Step 2B: What alternatives are possible within these boundaries? 441
Step 3: What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages
of Each Alternative? 443
 Contents

Step 3A: What are the advantages of each alternative? 443

Step 3B: What are the disadvantages of each alternative? 444
Step 3C: What additional information do I need to evaluate each
alternative? 444
Step 4: What Is the Solution? 445
Step 4A: What alternative(s) will I pursue? 445
Step 4B: What steps can I take to act on the alternative(s) chosen? 447
Step 5: How Well Is the Solution Working? 447
Step 5A: What is my evaluation? 448
Step 5B: What adjustments are necessary? 448
Solving Social Problems 451
Thinking Passages 452
from Young Hate by David Shenk 452
from When Is It Rape? by Nancy Gibbs 459
Writing Thoughtfully About Solving Problems 467
Writing Project 469
THE WRITING PROCESS 470
STUDENT WRITING 473

CHAPTER 12

Constructing Arguments — Writing to Establish

Agreement 479
Critical Thinking Focus: Using reasons, evidence, and logic
Writing Focus: Convincing an audience
Reading Theme: Arguments about important issues
Writing Project: Arguing a position on a significant issue

An Introduction to the Principles of Argument 479

Classical Concepts 480
Links to the Thinking^Writing Model 480
Establishing Agreement 480
Thinking Critically About Argument 481
Recognizing Arguments 483
Cue Words for Arguments 485
Drugs by Gore Vidal 487
The Case for Slavery by A. M. Rosenthal 488
xvi Contents

Arguments as Inferences 490

Constructing Arguments to Decide 490
Constructing Arguments to Explain 491
Constructing Arguments to Predict 491
Constructing Arguments to Persuade 491
Evaluating Arguments 492
Truth: How True Are the Supporting Reasons? 492
Validity: Do the Reasons Support the Claim or Conclusion? 492
The Soundness of Arguments 494
from For a National Effort to Develop a Vaccine to Counteract AIDS by-
Robert E. Pollack 495
from Why an AIDS Vaccine? by Charles Krauthammer 497
Forms of Argument 499
Deductive Reasoning 499
Other Deductive Forms 501
Inductive Reasoning 504
Causai Reasoning and the Scientific Method 504
Empirical Generalization 505
Is the Sample Known? 505
Is the Sample Sufficient? 506
Is the Sample Representative? 506
“Fallacies”: Forms of False Reasoning 508
Hasty Generalization 509
Sweeping Generalization 510
False Dilemma 510
Fallacies of Relevance 511
Appeal to Authority 511
Appeal to Pity 512
Appeal to Fear 513
Appeal to Ignorance 513
Appeal to Personal Attack 513
The Declaration of Independence 515
from Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Seneca Falls by Elizabeth
Cady Stanton 518
Deductive and Inductive Reasoning in Writing 521
Writing Thoughtful Arguments 522
Writing Project 524
THE WRITING PROCESS 526
STUDENT WRITING 528
Preface

Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing: A Rhetoric with Readings presents an in¬

tegrated approach to teaching the thinking, writing, and reading skills that
first-year composition students need in order to successfully complete aca¬
demic work. This book's goal is to help students develop complex thinking
and writing abilities by having them complete writing assignments and crit¬
ically evaluate challenging readings drawn from various disciplines and so¬
cial debate. Thinking*-*-Writing Activities are carefully integrated with
material throughout each chapter and culminate in a Writing Project at the
end of each chapter. The Writing Projects combine the thinking and writing
skills students have practiced and strengthened throughout the chapter. The
Writing Projects also draw upon the components of the Thinkings Writing
Model introduced in Chapter 1 (page 8) and are reinforced throughout the
book.
Writers and teachers of writing have long recognized intricate relation¬
ships between the extraordinary human processes of thought and language.
Leo Tolstoy eloquently observed that "The relations of word to thought, and the
creation of new concepts is a complex, delicate and enigmatic process unfolding in
our soul." To date, this insight has not been clearly translated into a compre¬
hensive approach for beginning college students to become thoughtful writ¬
ers. Experts in the thinking process (philosophers and psychologists, for
example) have not generally concentrated on the complex challenges of
teaching writing. Experts in teaching writing have found integrating the
critical thinking process into their pedagogy a sometimes problematic en¬
deavor.
Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing introduces a comprehensive model
of thinking and writing which integrates these processes. As students de¬
velop higher-order thinking abilities, they learn to articulate their ideas
through writing. And as they develop their abilities in the writing process,
they learn to think coherently, precisely, and creatively. This unique approach
integrates development of thinking skills with writing skills so that they not
only reinforce each other but also become inseparable.

XVII
xviii Preface

Incorporating Critical Thinking in Composition Instruction

More than one writer has echoed Annie Dillard's observation, "I don't know
what I think until I see myself write." Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing
presents writing as a way of thinking and learning by developing critical
thinking skills to help writers write clearly and forcefully. It also incorporates
critical thinking as a way of teaching composition. An integrated and organic
model of thinking, writing, and reading that prepares students for meaning¬
ful success in their academic courses, careers, and personal lives rests right at
its core. Its approach reflects recent research into the thinking process, as well
as contemporary practices in writing pedagogy, including the following areas:

■ learning collaboratively
■ writing and reading in
the disciplines
■ appreciating diversity,
and
■ conducting research

This book stimulates and guides students to think deeply and beyond super¬
ficialities, to refuse to be satisfied with the first idea they have, to look objec¬
tively at the pros and cons of issues, and to formulate their own informed
conclusions. It helps students develop an interest in research and in delving
into possibilities rather than into commonplace answers. It encourages stu¬
dents to be independent in their thinking and courageous in their convic¬
tions. And it shows them how to organize information, interpret different
perspectives, solve challenging problems, analyze complex issues, and com¬
municate their ideas clearly.

Using a Critical Thinking Framework to Teach Writing

Significant advantages to using a critical thinking framework to teach
thoughtful writing and informed reading include the following:

■ Critical thinking provides an intellectual and thematic framework

that helps writing teachers place structural and grammatical concerns
in a meaningful context. Because students are involved in and con¬
cerned about what they are writing, they are motivated to master the
technical aspects of writing in order to articulate their thinking with
clarity and precision. Critical thinking lends rigor and seriousness to
students' writing. Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing challenges and
guides students to think and write about important topics that build on
their cognitive activities and critical explorations. This process enables
 Preface xix

students to improve both the technical aspects of their writing (coher¬

ence, organization, detail, use of grammatical conventions) as well as
the quality of their writing (depth, insight, sophistication).
■ A critical thinking framework permits students to understand the re¬
ciprocal relationship between the process of thinking and the process
of writing. Students are stimulated to explore their own composing
processes, gradually mastering the forms of thought and critical think¬
ing that are the hallmark of mature and thoughtful writing. Students
are challenged to explore, analyze, and evaluate opinions.
■ The emphasis of critical thinking on actively exploring ideas, listen¬
ing to others, and carefully evaluating opinions and arguments pro¬
vides a context for collaborative learning and writing activities.
Students learn to examine their own opinions analytically and relate
these opinions to the world at large. They learn to assess alternative
points of view in dialogue with others. This approach enables them to
use writing as a means of self-discovery, and to learn from the re¬
sponses of others. The result is a sense of community and mutual sup¬
port that gives students confidence to learning openly and
collaboratively.
■ The critical thinking framework helps students appreciate that read¬
ing is a thinking activity rather than a series of decoding skills. This
understanding results in accelerated and enhanced reading develop¬
ment. Students are better able to understand and develop the interre¬
lated thinking abilities which comprise the reading process. This
includes problem-solving, forming and applying concepts, and relating
ideas to larger conceptual frameworks.

Distinctive Features of Thinking Critically, Writing

Thoughtfully
The four-part organization of every chapter integrates thinking, writing and
reading. Each chapter focuses on a central critical thinking skill, which is ex¬
plored through Thinking-*-*-Writing Activities, and readings that embody the
thought processes of the kind of writing students should develop. These
demonstrate the key point introduced at the beginning of the book: "You
can't write better than you think!"

■ A Comprehensive Thinking-*-* Writing Model. The Thinking-*-* Writing

Model introduced in Chapter One (page 8) and reinforced throughout
the book provides a clear graphic representation of the writing process
and of the connections between critical thinking and thoughtful writ¬
ing, as well as creative thinking and inventive writing.
xx Preface

■ Thematic Reading Clusters. Readings in every chapter provide the ba¬

sis for assignments that initiate students' writing. Engaging themes in¬
clude creativity, decision making, language discovery, gender issues,
ecological relationships, media influences, problem-solving, and argu¬
ments on controversial issues.
■ Writing Projects. Each chapter culminates in a carefully structured
Writing Project that builds on the skills developed in the
Thinking-^ Writing Activities in the chapter. The Writing Projects guide
students to use the Thinking^-* Writing Model to compose papers with
special emphasis on chapter themes. The text moves methodically
through each Project, guiding the students through stages toward a fin¬
ished product.
■ Progression from the Personal to the Social. The book moves logically
from introducing creative and critical thinking to explaining how these
tools can be used for the different modes of writing. It helps students
understand thinking and writing as ways to show relationships, then
moves into more complex modes of expository and argumentative writ¬
ing. The logical progression evolves from the more personal and spon¬
taneous thrust of creative writing, through attention to language issues,
to traditional organizational patterns, and finally to problem-solving
and argumentation. Students are encouraged to use external sources in
their writing: researching, evaluating, integrating, and referencing.
With its emphasis on the interplay of critical thinking and writing, the
book provides a productive format for quickly pulling students out of
their personal experiences and pushing them to think and write about
more challenging issues and concepts. The practical strategies they
learn will help students address writing assignments they will face in
other academic classes as well as in the workplace.
■ Clear Definition of Critical Thinking. Critical and creative thinking
are often nebulous to many students, but this book introduces them in
concrete ways. East chapter contains the following organization: a con¬
cept is introduced; a "real world" context for that concept is provided;
and then the concept is related to its use in writing and critical thinking
(for example, discussing a practical process for making decisions, then
applying that process to making decisions about editing and revising
drafts).
■ Substantive Treatment of Creative Thinking. The book discusses cre¬
ative as well as critical thinking, showing that creative thought can and
should be an integral part of academic writing.
■ Emphasis on Collaboration. The value of collaboration in thinking and
writing is emphasized throughout.
■ Cross-disciplinary Approach. Recognizing that first-year composition
courses prepare students to write in all of their courses and after col-
 Preface xxi

lege, this book presents examples, selections, and assignments that ap¬
ply to a variety of disciplines.
■ Broad Coverage. In addition to coverage of expository composition
themes, the book emphasizes the reasoning process throughout, and in¬
cludes a chapter on argument. This inclusive coverage and flexible de¬
sign makes the book suitable for a first or second semester course, as
well as a two-semester sequence.
■ Emphasis on the "Whole" Student. The book views learning to think,
write, and read as integral dimensions of an individual's personal
growth and transformation. It aims to help students grow. While learn¬
ing how to think and write, students are encouraged to apply these crit¬
ical and creative thinking and problem-solving skills to all facets of
their lives.

The Authors
Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing is the result of collaboration of three au¬
thors. John Chaffee, a professor of Philosophy, has been a pioneer in the field
of Critical Thinking and Critical Literacy for the last twenty years. His best¬
selling textbook. Thinking Critically, fifth edition, presents a comprehensive,
language-based approach to learning to think critically that has helped de¬
fine the field of Critical Thinking. He has linked Critical Thinking and Com¬
position courses at his college, creating powerful learning communities that
accelerate the development of students' thinking, writing, and reading abili¬
ties. Barbara Stout and Christine McMahon, both professors of English, have
used Thinking Critically in their Composition courses for over seven years
and have adapted John Chaffee's critical thinking approach to the teaching
of writing. Their approaches to teaching writing and their active involve¬
ment in the composition field have contributed significantly to a text that
is practical, effective, and adaptable to a variety of instructional contexts.
This multidisciplinary synthesis has produced a text that provides students
with a clear path to becoming literate thinkers, thoughtful writers, and in¬
formed readers.

Acknowledgments
John would like to thank Christine McMahon and Barbara Stout for the ded¬
ication and expertise they brought to this unique project of extending my
work in critical thinking to the field of composition: I would also like to ac¬
knowledge my editors at Houghton Mifflin for their outstanding contribu¬
tions to this book. Janet Edmonds displayed exceptional wisdom and
xxii Preface

tenacity in nurturing this book through every stage of its development,

adamantly refusing to surrender her delightful sense of humor. Suzanne
Phelps-Weir brought a creative vision to the book that enabled it to transcend
conventional boundaries, and her personal warmth enriched everyone's col¬
laboration on the project. Gabrielle Stone brought her customary high level
of professionalism in coordinating the production of the book, as well as a
graciousness that made work on it a pleasure. This book has benefited enor¬
mously from the keen understanding and marketing savvy of Nancy Lyman,
with whom every encounter is a memorable experience. A special acknowl¬
edgment goes to Joyce Neff at Old Dominion University for her insightful re¬
view of the manuscript and her superb work in writing the Instructor's
Resource Guide. I am particularly indebted to the members of the English
Department at LaGuardia College for their creative collaboration in linking
the Writing and Critical Thinking programs over the last 20 years, which was
initially supported with funding from. The National Endowment for the Hu¬
manities. My children, Jessie and Joshua, and my wife, Heide Lange, have
provided ongoing love, support and guidance that have enhanced this book
and brought purpose and meaning to my life.
Chris gratefully acknowledges the W. K. Kellogg Foundation whose Bea¬
con College Project supported the Critical Literacy Institute at Oakton Col¬
lege: I acknowledge the faculty at Oakton who obtained the grant and invited
Montgomery College to be an Associate College. I came to know John Chaf¬
fee's work through them. I am indebted to the administrators at Montgomery
College who chose me as Project Coordinator and provided generous re¬
sources for Critical Literacy at our three campuses. The students I have
taught, some of whose work appears in this book, helped me learn how to
teach and motivated me to share what I know. I am in their debt. John and
Barbara were wonderful co-authors. Carolyn and Jim Terry solved our
computer-related difficulties. My husband, Michael, helped in every way.
Finally, I thank my grown-up children, Gregory, Beth, and Chris, for their
love and support.
Barbara is very grateful to countless colleagues from many colleges and
universities whose scholarship in composition, rhetoric, and writing-across-
the-curriculum is the foundation for informed teaching, programs, and
textbooks: I am grateful to the Conference on College Composition and Com¬
munication, the Two-Year College English Association, and the National
Writing Project for providing opportunities for sharing information and
ideas. My thanks to the faculty and administrators in Montgomery College's
Critical Literacy Project, to the capable staff in the English Department and
the Computer Writing Room at the Rockville Campus, to English Depart¬
ment faculty colleagues, and to my students from whom I always learn more
than I can teach. Of course, my most heartfelt thanks are to my family: David,
Richard, Rebecca, Sally, Lyn, Patrick, Kathleen, and Florence.
 Preface xxiii

We would also like to thank our reviewers, who offered wise insights and
su§8esti°ns about the manuscript at various stages of development.

Patricia Bizzel College of the Holy Cross

Paul Bodmer Bismarck State College
Judith A. Hinman College of the Redwoods
Frederick T. Janzow Southeast Missouri State
Shirley Wilson Logan University of Maryland
Joyce Neff Old Dominion University
Elizabeth A. Nist Anoka-Ramsey Community College
Isaiah Smithson Southern Illinois University
Byron Stay Mount St. Mary's College
Kay Stokes Hanover College
Michael Thomas College of the Redwoods
Elizabeth Wahlquist Brigham Young University
 '

f■\ 1
PART ONE

Understand ins the Tools

of Thinking and Writing

chapter i Thinking Through Writing

chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully
chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively
chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—
Revising Purposefully
chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

The chances are that if you stop to think about it, you will notice several
I ways that thinking and writing are connected. How can you write about
a topic unless you have spent time thinking about it? How much better do
you understand a topic after you have written about it? Part One of this
book sharpens your awareness of the interactive relationships between
thinking and writing. It also introduces you to ways of becoming a critical
thinker and a thoughtful writer. A Writing Project at the end of each
chapter asks you to draw from your own experiences and observations as
you write about a topic that helps you explore the relationships between
thinking and writing.
 CHAPTER 1
i

Thinking Through Writing

Thinking and Writing in College

Thinking and writing exist on many levels, ranging from the simple and ba¬
sic to the complex and insightful. In the same way that everybody "thinks,"
most people are able to "write," in that they can put words on paper. In your
previous education, "good writing" might have meant mastering the basics
of organization, grammar, and spelling. While these are essential, as a college
writer you are expected to do more: to write with depth, insight, and analyt¬
ical understanding. In order to achieve this level of sophistication in writing,
you need to develop comparably advanced thinking abilities. (You can't, af¬
ter all, write better than you think!)
The intimate, interactive relationships among language, thinking, and
writing have been remarked on by many professional writers; for example:

The process of transforming all direct experience into imagery or into language has so
completely taken possession of the human mind that it is not only a special talent but a
dominant, organic need, susanne k. langer

I write to understand as much as to be understood, elie wiesel

How do I know what I think until I see what I say. e. m. forster

Words are always with other words, and the other words are almost always in a story of
some sort. Leslie marmon silko

The mere process of writing is one of the most powerful tools we have for clarifying our
own thinking. JAMES van allen

This book is designed to improve your writing abilities as you develop

your critical thinking abilities. For example, instead of simply telling you
how to write a paper using a problem-solving format, this book is designed
to teach you to think like a problem solver and then to write like one. Again,
2
 Thinking and Writing in College 3

rather than providing you with guidelines on how to write an analytical or

argumentative essay the book will help you to think through the processes of
analyzing complex issues and constructing compelling arguments, and then
to express your understanding in effective writing.
In order to improve your writing abilities, you also need to write on a
regular basis, integrating writing into your life as a vital and natural element.
Therefore, this book offers you Thinking-* ►Writing Activities. These can be
done in various ways: out of class or in, individually or in pairs or groups,
and in whatever format your instructor specifies. He or she might ask you to
record your responses in a special journal to be reviewed periodically, or on
separate sheets of paper to be handed in. Your writing may also be shared
with classmates, or used as a basis for discussion.
Thinking and writing are active processes that all of us learn by engag¬
ing in them. By participating in the Thinking^Writing Activities, applying
ideas in this book to your own experiences, and completing the Writing Proj¬
ects, you will be sharpening your thinking and writing abilities, and by shar¬
ing your ideas with other members of the class, you will expand your own
thinking and theirs. Each student has a wealth of experiences and insights to
offer the class community.

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 1.1

Recalling a Learning Experience
Recall a memorable learning experience that you have had, either in school or
outside. Describe that experience and explain why it had a lasting impact on
you. Discuss how the experience contributed to your development as a thinker
and writer.

Becoming am effective writer enables you to represent the rich fabric of

your experience with clarity and precision. As you may have learned from your
writing experiences thus far, the very process of using language serves to gen¬
erate ideas. As a vehicle for creating and communicating your ideas, writing
can be thought of as a catalyst stimulating your personal and intellectual de¬
velopment. Since the writing process also enlarges your understanding of the
world, becoming an effective writer is at the heart of your college education.

Reading, Writing, and Thinking

In many ways college is a whole new world. Not only are you expected to do
more work in your courses, you also are expected to work at a higher level:
to write more analytically, to think more conceptually, and to read more critically
than ever before.
Reading, writing, and thinking are, of course, closely connected. Through
4 Chapter 1 Thinking Through Writing

reading, literate human beings get information to use or to react to in their writ¬
ing. On the conventional paper pages of books, magazines, and newspapers,
on the computer screens of e-mail or the Internet, we read other people's
thoughts, reflect on those thoughts ourselves, and deal with them in various
ways when we write. Yet in addition to information-gathering, there are at least
three other reading/writing/thinking interactions important to understand.
One is critical reading of others' writing. Chapters 2,10, and 12 will im¬
prove your ability to evaluate the ideas that you read about and use them
more precisely in your writing. Another is analytical reading. Most people,
consciously and unconsciously, emulate as writers what they take in as read¬
ers; so one goal of this book is to help you analyze how other writers have put
their pieces together. Another goal is to lead you to a third reading/writ¬
ing/ thinking interaction: a more critical, more analytical reading of your own
writing, so that you can better revise your drafts into effective papers.

Becoming a Thoughtful Writer

What exactly is "thinking"? Thinking is the cognitive process you use every
waking moment to make sense of your world as you work towards your
goals, make informed decisions, analyze complex issues, and solve problems.
By understanding (and practicing) these thinking abilities, you will be learn¬
ing to think more effectively. However, in order to become a sophisticated
thinker, you need to become an accomplished writer. Writing and thought are
intimately related. Writing, with its power to represent our thoughts, feel¬
ings, and experiences symbolically, is the most important tool our thinking
process has. Working together, thinking and writing enable us to create and
communicate meaning, and both processes exhibit the following qualities:

■ Thinking and writing are active processes. Whether you are trying to
reach a goal, solve a problem, analyze an issue, or make a decision, you
are actively using your thinking and writing abilities to figure some¬
thing out.
■ Thinking and writing are directed toward a purpose. When you think
and write, it is usually for a purpose—to communicate, clarify your un¬
derstanding, express an idea, or act intelligently.
■ Thinking and writing can become organized processes. When you
think and write effectively, these processes usually exhibit an order or
organization.

We can put together these conclusions about thinking and writing to

form working definitions of the terms.

Thinking: an active, purposeful cognitive process that we use to

make sense of our world.
 Thinking and Writing in College 5

Writing: an active, purposeful process that uses a system of

written symbols for thinking and communicating.

Thinking and writing are processes that develop with use over a lifetime.
You can improve your thinking and writing by following these three steps:

■ Becoming aware of your thinking and writing processes. Have you of¬
ten taken thinking and writing for granted and paid little attention to
them? Developing these abilities means that you really have to "think
about" the way you think and write.
■ Carefully examining your thinking and writing processes (and the
thinking and writing of others). By analyzing and understanding these
complex processes, you can learn to handle them more effectively.
■ Practicing your thinking and writing abilities. To improve your think-
ing, you have to explore and make sense of thinking situations; to im¬
prove your writing, you have to write thoughtfully on an ongoing
basis. Although it is important to learn how other people think and use
language, there is no substitute for engaging in these activities yourself.

The ability to "think about your thinking" by carefully examining the

way that you make sense of the world is one of the most satisfying aspects of
being a mature, educated human being. We will refer to this ability to think
carefully about our thinking as the ability to think critically. Using our defi¬
nition of thinking as a starting point, we can define thinking critically as follows.

Thinking Critically: the organized cognitive process we use to

carefully examine our thinking and the thinking of others, in
order to clarify and improve our understanding.

Analogously, writing thoughtfully involves developing insight into our

writing processes so that we can express our ideas effectively.

Writing Thoughtfully: thinking critically as we move through

the process of writing.

People are able to think critically and write thoughtfully because of their
natural human ability to reflect—to think back on what they are thinking, do¬
ing, or feeling. By carefully reflecting on your thinking, you are able to see
how that thinking operates, so you learn to think more effectively. In the same
way, reflecting on your language use, and particularly on the way you write.
6 Chapter 1 Thinking Through Writing

enables you to improve and refine your writing abilities. In the following
chapters, you will be systematically exploring many dimensions of how the
human mind works.

Thinking and Writing Creatively

Carefully examining our thinking and writing processes assumes that they
have been generating ideas worth examining. Our ability to think creatively
makes producing such ideas possible. When we think creatively, we discover
ideas—and connections among ideas—that are illuminating, useful, often ex¬
citing, sometimes original, and usually worthy of elaboration. We can define
thinking creatively in this way:

Thinking Creatively: discovering and developing ideas that are

unusual and worthy of further elaboration.

Thinking creatively is integrally tied in with thinking critically and writ¬

ing thoughtfully. In other words, these three dimensions of thinking and lan¬
guage activities are tightly interwoven. Creative thinking and critical
thinking work together to bring about effective thinking, which enables us to
produce thoughtful writing, which in turn gives form to our ideas and com¬
municates these ideas to others.

The Thinking^+Writing Model

The paradox of acquiring any complex ability is that in the best of all possi¬
ble worlds, you would learn all the component parts of the activity at the
same time. For example, learning to drive a car requires you to master a va¬
riety of component skills that operate simultaneously: watching the road
ahead, steering, applying the appropriate pressure on the gas pedal, braking,
keeping a proper distance from other vehicles, watching for traffic signs and
traffic lights, keeping an eye open for pedestrians, and so on. Yet a book on
driving, or a video, focuses on one skill at a time, because that is how infor¬
mation is presented most easily. Somehow you have to make the leap from
learning all of the skills separately in a linear, step-by-step fashion, to using
them all at the same time, in complex relationships with one another. This is
very difficult!
One of the authors of this book remembers his first, bewildering, driv¬
ing lesson with his mother and father: "As I headed directly for a brick wall
in the supermarket parking lot, my mother yelled Turn right!' while my
father screamed Turn left!' In my frenzied brain, these contradictory
 The Thinking^Writing Model 7

commands canceled each other out, so I continued on my course—with disas¬

trous results."
Learning the complex skills of thinking critically and writing thoughtfully
poses a similar dilemma. While it is essential to learn each of the component
parts of these processes, what distinguishes critical thinkers and thoughtful
writers is that they can use all of these individual skills at the same time.
Our approach to solving this problem will be to introduce a visual
Thinking-*-*Writing Model that presents the important parts of these
processes. As you work your way through the various chapters and activities
in the book, you will become more familiar with the different dimensions of
the Thinking-*-*Writing process as they function in the model we show and as
they function for you.
Of course, you already know how to think and write fairly proficiently;
otherwise, you wouldn't be in college. This book offers you opportunities to
build on the strengths you have and to grow as a critical thinker and thought¬
ful writer. Thinking-*-*Writing Activity 1.2 asks you to reflect on your own
Thinking-*-*Writing process as a starting point.

THINKING -*-* WRITING ACTIVITY 1.2

Analyzing a Writing Experience

Describe in detail a writing experience you found particularly satisfying: for ex¬
ample, a paper you wrote for school, a market analysis for the company you
work for, or a letter that expressed important thoughts and feelings. After com¬
pleting your description, answer the following questions in your journal or
notebook.
■ What was your goal or purpose in writing?
■ What was the reaction of the people who read it—your audience?
■ How did you think up the key ideas you included?
■ How did you organize your ideas?
■ Did you use other sources (such as readings) to provide support and con¬
text for your writing?
■ In what ways did you revise your writing?
■ How did you feel after completing your writing?

Your analysis of a previous writing experience in this Thinking-* *Writing

Activity should underscore the fact that you already use many of the abilities
that are integral to the Thinking-*-*Writing process.

Dynamic Relationships
Examine carefully the Thinking-* *Writing Model on page 8. This model
shows the many interactive relationships among its components. The model.
8 Chapter 1 Thinking Through Writing

THE
THINKING —— WRITING
MODEL

The Thinkins-^Writins Model

 The Thinkings Writing Model 9

of course, is only an attempt to make these concepts visible; it would be im¬

possible to draw enough arrows through three dimensions to show how all
the components in all the circles connect at various times. Also, people have
different writing processes, so they may experience these relationships in dif¬
ferent ways and at different times.
Writing occurs in a context, a situation within which the act of writing
takes place. Countless contextual factors affect a piece of writing: Is the writ¬
ing done because it has been assigned? Or is it done because the writer wants
to do it? How effective does it need to be, and why? Is it done with a pencil
or a Braillewriter or a computer? Is it composed in a native language, or a sec¬
ond or third language? Is the writer working under time pressure? Still,
whatever else contributes to the context, most writing situations are shaped
by consideration of purpose, audience, subject, and writer. These terms ap¬
pear in the outermost circle of the model because they provide an immediate
context for any act of writing.
The next circle indicates the reciprocal relationships among
■ Writing Thoughtfully,
■ Thinking Creatively, and
■ Thinking Critically.

When you first decide to write something, you think creatively to come up
with some initial ideas. Simultaneously (or almost simultaneously), these be¬
ginning ideas find form in language, expressed in writing. Yet the process of
writing thoughtfully elaborates and shapes the ideas that you are trying to ex¬
press, especially if you are to bring your critical thinking abilities to bear on
this evolving process.
This extraordinarily complex process typically takes place in a very nat¬
ural fashion, in much less time than it takes to describe it. It's like trying to
describe a new dance step or a technique in sports; verbal descriptions seem
clumsy and unnecessarily complicated, compared with simply helping
someone perform the action. Although organized and specific descriptions of
a complex activity are important, ultimately the most productive way to
learn is to engage in the activity and then have someone coach you in order
to refine your performance. It was Ben Franklin who said, "Tell me, I will for¬
get; teach me, I will remember; involve me, I will learn," and the Greek dramatist
Sophocles who observed, "Knowledge must come through action."
The next circle shows the recursive—the natural tendency to move back
and forth among activities—relationships among the activities in which
people engage when they write:
■ Generating ideas
■ Defining a thesis
■ Organizing ideas
■ Drafting
■ Revising
10 Chapter 1 Thinking Through Writing

Since collaborating often occurs in all these activities, the line representing
collaboration weaves in and out among them in the model.
At the very center of the model is "communicating," the process by
which we share our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Communication cre¬
ates miraculous moments when our minds touch and engage other minds,
and such moments occur throughout the acti vities in the Thinking^Writing
Model.
The model pertains most fully to writing done with enough time for re¬
vision. Sometimes you have to write quickly, with little or no time to rethink
and rewrite. College examinations often put you in this writing situation.
Then the model has to function in a fast-forward mode. Purpose, subject, and
audience are usually very clear (pass the test; discuss the subject well; show
your instructor what you know.) Generating ideas, staying with the focus defined
by the question, and organizing ideas are the components most useful to writing
that must be quickly done. If you can understand, practice, and improve
these abilities in contexts where you have time to draft and revise, you should
be able to cope better with writing that must be done quickly.
The model will be explored in the chapters ahead, but the next few pages
will introduce you to its components.

The Thinking^Writing Model: Outer Circle

Purpose
Every act of writing has a purpose. When you are drafting, you are trying to
discover what you want to say, what you already know about the topic, and
what you have to find out. When you complete a paper for a college course,
you hope to show your professor that you can make significant statements
about concepts relevant to the class. In a business setting, your aim is to trans¬
mit information or requests in a memo or a report; in your social life, you
want to communicate with friends through letters or e-mail; in your private
life, you write in your journal so that you can recall your activities and feel¬
ings. A crucial part of becoming an accomplished writer is maintaining a
clear idea of the specific goals of whatever piece you are working on, along
with an understanding of the audience for whom you are writing.

Audience
Thoughtful writing is shaped by consideration of its audience, the intended
reader or readers. Although there are some instances when you write only for
yourself (a diary entry, for example), you probably intend most of your writ¬
ing to be read by someone else: the person receiving your letter, the cowork¬
ers reading your memo, the friend enjoying your poem, the instructor
 The Thinkings Writing Model: Outer Circle 11

grading your paper. The more you think about your audience, the more con¬
cerned you are about making yourself clear, the better your writing will be¬
come. The real skill lies in writing so clearly and coherently that your
audience will receive exactly the same message that you intend to send.
Effective writers are able to put themselves in their readers' place and
view their own writing through of their readers' eyes. This perspective-taking
helps them craft their writing so that it will best communicate the ideas and
emotions they are seeking to convey. In other words, they think about how
much background information their audience will need, or won't need, to un¬
derstand the intended message. Anticipating possible questions that may
come into the audience s minds, they try to answer the questions at appro¬
priate places. Understanding that the audience may have strong feelings
about the topic, they take those feelings into consideration when they write.
Effective writers organize their expository writing so that the audience
can follow it easily. They state their main point, their thesis, in a clear thesis
statement so that the audience will know what the focus is. They use examples
so that the audience can "see" what they mean, transitions to help the audi¬
ence make connections among ideas, and standard grammar, punctuation, and
spelling so that the audience will not become distracted and confused. Errors
cause an audience to stop and reread or, worse yet, they require the audience
to guess what the writer means. Errors can create a negative image of you as
a writer.

Subject
Obviously, writing has to be about someone or something—a subject. Some¬
times the subject originates in your own experience, but often it comes from
ideas and information provided by others. Much of college writing involves
responding to ideas presented in textbooks, class lectures, or other sources.
Your writing task is usually to demonstrate your understanding of the ideas
presented, and also to apply, analyze, synthesize, or evaluate the ideas being ex¬
pressed. The quality of your writing depends on the quality of your thinking
as you process ideas and present them in order to communicate your own in¬
formed perspective on the subject.

Writer
Of course, any writing situation calls for a writer, and the characteristics of
the writer affect what is written and how it is produced. Experienced writers
usually approach writing with more abilities and confidence than the inex¬
perienced. Someone with considerable knowledge sees a subject differently
from someone exploring it for the first time. A writer's identity as a woman
or a man or a member of an ethnic or other social group often influences ap¬
proaches and attitudes. The relationship of the writer to the language or
12 Chapter 1 Thinking Through Writing

dialect being used makes a difference; whether the writer is tired or energetic,
happy or sad, and so forth, makes a difference too.
This book emphasizes the importance of understanding yourself as a
writer. You should be aware of what knowledge—and what biases—you
bring to the subject, the audience, and the purpose of an assignment. All writ¬
ers do have at least one thing in common: they want to succeed in their writ¬
ing tasks by discussing their subjects appropriately, reaching their audiences,
and fulfilling their purposes.

The Thinking^Writing Model: Second Circle

Writing Thoughtfully, Thinking Creatively, Thinking Critically
These three processes work in an integrated way to create meaning and com¬
municate understanding. Effective writers not only use each of these
processes, but are also able to integrate them. For example, it is impossible to
write thoughtfully without creating ideas that reflect your vision of the
world, or without using your critical thinking abilities to evaluate the accu¬
racy and intelligibility of what you are writing about. Unfortunately, these
essential abilities are not always taught explicitly. Too often, writing is em¬
phasized as a way of putting words together in conventional forms, not as a
dynamic means of personal expression that liberates us to express our cre¬
ative perspectives—tempered by critical evaluation.

The Thinking^Writing Model: Third Circle

Activities of People’s Writing Processes
Despite the many different writing forms and contexts, the basic elements of
the writing process remain relatively constant:

■ Generating ideas
■ Defining a focus (main idea or "thesis")
■ Drafting
■ Organizing ideas into various thinking patterns
■ Revising, editing, and proofreading
■ Collaborating, which can weave through all these activities

The arrows and circular format on the model are designed to emphasize
the recursive nature of this process. For most writers, these activities rarely
take place in a neat, orderly sequence. Instead, writers move in different ways
from generating ideas to drafting to more generating to organizing to revis¬
ing to generating to editing—around and around—as they develop ideas and
clarify them.
 The Thinkings Writing Model: Third Circle 13

You have probably discovered that the process of writing does not
merely express your thinking; it also stimulates your thoughts, bringing to the
surface new ideas and ways to explore them. So although you may begin a
writing project by generating some ideas, you may find yourself returning to
generating ideas later on, as you work to organize and draft your thoughts, de¬
veloping new or refined concepts to write about. And as you gain more ex¬
perience with collaboration, you may find yourself turning to others more
frequently to benefit from their ideas and perspectives. Writers always need
readers.

Generating Ideas
Most writing efforts begin with identifying something to write about. Since
ideas are not created in isolation but are almost always related to a particular
subject, you expand ideas by exploring that subject. Some writing projects
have very specific requirements; others may be more open-ended. In most
cases, however, you will be expected to come up with your own ideas. Even
when you are responding to an assigned topic or a reading selection, you are
typically expected to offer an original insight or viewpoint. At this stage of
generating ideas, a number of strategies are useful, such as brainstorming, cre¬
ating mind maps, freewriting, and asking key questions to stimulate your
creative thinking. You should return to these pages as you work on the Writ¬
ing Projects at the end of each of the other chapters in this book.

Some Strategies for Generating Ideas

Brainstorming is an activity in which, working individually or with a group
of people, you write down all the ideas the group can think of related to a
given theme. The goal is to produce as many ideas as possible in a specified
period of time. While you are engaged in this idea-generating process, it is
important to relax, let your mind run free, build on the ideas of others, and
refrain from censoring or evaluating any ideas produced, no matter how
marginal they seem at first. Brainstorming stimulates your creative juices,
and you will be surprised at how many ideas you are able to come up with.
And if you work with other people, you will be exposed to fresh perspectives
and the synergy of people working together as a team.
Mind maps are visual presentations of the various ways ideas can be re¬
lated to one another. For example, the Thinking^Writing Model is a mind
map. Mind maps are also a powerful approach for writing, helping you gen¬
erate ideas and begin organizing them into various relationships. They are
well suited to the writing process for a number of reasons. First, the organi¬
zation grows naturally, reflecting the way your mind naturally makes associ¬
ations and arranges information. Second, the organization can easily be
revised on the basis of new information and your developing understanding
of how this information should be organized. Third, you can express a range
14 Chapter 1 Thinking Through Writing

Generates Ideas: A number of stratesies like brainstormins, mind maps,

and freewriting can be used to generate ideas for writing assignments.

of relationships among the various ideas. Also, instead of being identified

once and then forgotten, each idea remains an active part of the overall pat¬
tern, suggesting new possible relationships. Fourth, you do not have to
decide initially on a beginning, subpoints, and so on; you can do this after
your pattern is complete, so you save time and avoid frustration.
Freewriting is a sort of written brainstorming in which you write with a
minimum of conscious reflection. But rather than simply listing ideas,
freewriters usually write in sentences. The goal is to let your ideas flow freely,
without inhibition, giving your mind the opportunity to develop creative
ideas in unique combinations. As with brainstorming, freewriting generally
works best in a limited time frame, and you should be unconcerned about
spelling, grammar, and evaluation of the ideas you are expressing. Freewrit-
 The Thinkings* Writing Model: Third Circle 15

ing is an excellent way to "jump-start" your thinking process and prepare

you for more thoughtful composing. It also helps you realize what informa¬
tion you already have on a subject, so that you can decide whether to do more
research.
Questions that explore a topic provide another strategy for generating
ideas. In fact, the ability to ask appropriate and penetrating questions is one
of the most powerful thinking/language tools we possess. Asking questions
enables us to go beyond the obvious, to think and write in ways that are in-
depth, complex, and articulate. Questions come in many different forms and
are used for many different purposes. For instance, questions can be classi¬
fied in terms of the ways people organize and interpret information, and we
can identify six such categories of questions:

1- Fact 4. Synthesis
2. Interpretation 5. Evaluation
3. Analysis 6. Application

Thoughtful writers are able to ask appropriate questions from all of these cat¬
egories in a very natural and flexible way. Listed below is a summary of the
six categories of questions, along with sample forms of questions from each
category.

1. Questions of Fact Questions of fact seek to determine the basic informa¬

tion of a situation: who, what, when, where, how. These questions seek in¬
formation that is relatively straightforward and objective:
Who, what, when, where, how_?
Describe_
2. Questions of Interpretation Questions of interpretation seek to select
and organize facts and ideas, discovering the relationships between them.
Examples of such relationships include the following:
Chronological relationships, relating things in time sequence
Process relationships, relating aspects of growth, development, or change
Comparison/contrast relationships, relating things in terms of their similar or
different features
Causal relationships, relating events in terms of the way some of them are
responsible for bringing about others
These questions can help you discover relationships:
Retell-in your own words.
What is the main idea of_?
What is the time sequence relating the following events:_?
What are the steps in the process of growth or development in_?
How would you compare and contrast the features of_
and_,_?
What was/were the cause(s) of_? What was/were the
effect(s) of_?
3. Questions of Analysis Questions of analysis seek to separate an entire
process or situation into its component parts and understand the relation
16 Chapter 1 Thinking Through Writing

of these parts to the whole. These questions attempt to classify various

elements, outline component structures, articulate various possibilities,
and clarify the reasoning being presented:
What are the parts or features of_?
Classify-according to_
Outline/diagram/zveb_,_
What evidence can you present to support ?
What are the possible alternatives for_ ?
Explain the reasons why you think
4. Questions of Synthesis Questions of synthesis have as their goal com¬
bining ideas to form a new whole or come to a conclusion, making infer¬
ences about future events, creating solutions, and designing plans of
action:
What would you predict,/infer from__?
What ideas can you add to_?
How would you create/design a new_?
What might happen if you combined_with_?
What solutions/decisions would you suggest for___?
5. Questions of Evaluation The aim of evaluation questions is to help you
make informed judgments and decisions by determining the relative
value, truth, or reliability of things. The process of evaluation involves
identifying the criteria or standards you are using and then determining to
what extent the things being evaluated meet those standards.
How would you evaluate-and what standards would
you use?
Do you agree with-? Why or why not?
How would you decide about_?
What criteria would you use to assess_?
6. Questions of Application The purpose of application questions is to
help you take the knowledge or concepts you have gained in one situation
and apply them to other situations:
How is---an example of_?
How would you apply this rule/principle to_?

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 1.3

Generating Ideas
To practice the strategies just presented, spend five minutes applying each of
them (choose one set of questions) to a specific subject that you are going to
write about for this class, for any other class, for your job, or for some organi¬
zation in which you participate. (If you don’t have an assignment, think of a
subject that you would like to write about.) Record the ideas you generate.
Which technique did you find most effective? Why?
 The Thinkings Writing Model: Third Circle 17

Defining a Focus
After generating a number of possible ideas to write about, academic writers
need to define a focus. Academic writing is expected to have a focus; class¬
mates, professors, and others interested in your subject expect more than a
list of facts. Once selected, your main idea—known as a thesis—will organize
and direct your thinking. Your thesis will also guide your exploration of the
subject and suggest new ideas. Of course, a variety of main ideas can develop
out of any particular situation, and your initial working thesis will probably
need redefining as you draft your paper.
Sometimes you will need to do some drafting and organizing before you
are ready to define your focus. And sometimes you will need to refocus your
thesis as you do further drafting. Making decisions about a thesis is highly
important.

Organizing Ideas
Once you have a tentative thesis, you can start to plan the organization of
your paper. To begin, ask yourself, "What are my main points and how
should they be presented to my audience?" You can use a variety of thinking
patterns as you organize your writing, such as reporting chronologically,
comparing and contrasting, or dividing and classifying. Your choice of think¬
ing pattern will depend on the subject you are exploring, your purpose, and
your audience.
It usually helps to have a tentative organization to guide your drafting,
but often your organization changes as you draft and revise. This is a natural
and productive part of most people's writing processes.

Drafting
Most people have drafting routines of some sort. Some writers must use a
pencil; others, a pen; many need to keyboard. Some people need silence; oth¬
ers want background music. Many writers need solitude and comfort in or¬
der to draft productively. Effective writers know what they need; they
understand their own writing processes and what situation they want as they
work.
You need to think about what works for you. If you have not done so pre¬
viously, you should analyze your drafting practices so that you can accom¬
modate your needs and improve your productivity. Often you will find it
useful to draft in sections, according to your plan. Sometimes each section
works well as a separate file in your word processor or as an identified group
of legal-pad pages.
Always, of course, you need to be aware of what you are drafting: a sum¬
mary, a news story, an essay? Much of your academic writing will be in the
form of essays in which you are expected to take a position, analyze a con¬
cept, or interpret a subject. The structure normally used to organize ideas in
18 Chapter 1 Thinking Through Writing

an essay typically reflects the basic questions raised when discussing ideas
with others. As you draft, keep in mind the questions posed by Mina Shaugh-
nessey in her book Errors and Expectations:

What is your point? (stating the main idea)

I don't quite get your meaning, (explaining the main idea)
Prove it to me. (providing examples, evidence, and arguments to support
the main idea)
So what? (drawing a conclusion)

Revising
Because thinking and writing are interactive processes, you are continually
revising your thinking and writing as you work on almost any paper. An
early draft is usually just a starting point. Some writers need to produce mul¬
tiple drafts with—they hope—increasing levels of effectiveness; some writers
can get things on paper in relatively good shape quickly. However you work,
though, once you have expressed your thinking in language, you must be
able to go back and "re-see" (the origin of the word revise) your drafts as
clearly as possible.
Most writers have a hard time looking objectively at their own writing.
They know what they mean; they sometimes like certain words or sentences
or clever ideas and don't want to change them. But effective writers have ac¬
quired the ability to be critical readers of their own work and to face up to the
need for making major changes in their drafts.
One way to approach revising is to allow time for drafts to sit; you get
away from them so that you can see them with fresh eyes. Another way is to
have other readers respond to drafts; be prepared to heed their advice when
appropriate.
Revising begins with a rereading of the whole draft and with attention to
big questions about it. Does it fulfill its purpose, deal with its subject, address
its audience? Does the thesis need to be reformulated? Are ideas supported
with sound evidence and explained clearly?
Now might be a good time to create an outline or map of the draft, to
identify the main ideas and express their relationships. This, in turn, may
suggest ways to clarify your thinking by rearranging different parts, devel¬
oping certain points further, or deleting whatever is repetitious or irrelevant
to the main ideas of the paper. These activities are at the heart of revision.
They often bring about a lot of rewriting, maybe a complete redoing of the
draft. Fortunately, word processors make revision easier.
Then you need to look at smaller components: paragraph division, topic
sentences, sentence variety, connections and transitions. Some writers call
this editing. Then you need to check spelling and punctuation. Some writers
 Thinking and Writing as a Way of Living 19

call this proofreading. And sometimes while you are editing or proofreading,
you will see content and organization problems that require some more revi¬
sion!
f•

Collaborating
When you work with other people in the writing process, you participate in
collaboration. Collaborating with others can occur at every stage of the writ¬
ing process. People can help one another generate ideas, identify a main idea
to pursue, suggest possible approaches and ways of organizing. Some entire
pieces of writing, especially in business, are produced collaboratively by a
team of writers.
We often appreciate new perspectives when others review drafts of our
writing. This is the moment when writers get a sense of how effective their
efforts at communication are. No matter how clearly you try to keep your au¬
dience in mind as you write, you may not succeed at first. There is no substi¬
tute for having your audience (or people like your intended audience) inform
you of what you have and have not been able to communicate. With their
suggestions, you can improve and refine your writing so that it will better
convey what you intended. As a critical thinker and informed writer, you
learn to work with others in developing your thinking and writing, welcom¬
ing their advice when you are the sole author and contributing well when
you are part of a writing team.

The Center
The word communicating comes from the Latin word communicare, which
means "to share, to impart, to make common." As members of a social
species, we need to share thoughts and feelings with other human beings.
Also, we often need to communicate more clearly with ourselves. Every com¬
ponent in the Thinking-^Writing Model helps us reach our external and in¬
ternal audiences.
As technologies allow very rapid communication throughout the world,
critical thinking and thoughtful writing are ever more vital to the survival
and progress of humanity. So, of course, communicating is the center.

Thinking and Writing as a Way of Living

Becoming a critical thinker and thoughtful writer does not simply involve
mastering certain skills; it affects the entire way that you view the world and
live your life. Your development as a critical thinker and thoughtful writer is
revealed in many aspects of your life: for example, how you make decisions.
20 Chapter 1 Thinking Through Writing

how you relate to others, and how you deal with controversial issues. There
is no recipe or bag of tricks for becoming a thoughtful writer. Like other
achievements, it requires patience and practice. But you can master certain
abilities and strategies that will enable you to express your ideas clearly and
coherently, and helping you to master them is the explicit purpose of this
book and the course you are taking.
By improving your abilities to think critically and write thoughtfully, you
will equip yourself to deal with the challenges that life poses: to solve prob¬
lems, to establish and achieve goals, and to make sense of complex issues.
This foundation will be constructed in the chapters ahead, helping to provide
you with a basis for success in college and in your career.
 CHAPTER 2

Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

Critical Thinking Focus: Thinking about thinking

Writing Focus: Reflecting on experiences
Reading Theme: Experiences that have affected beliefs
Writing Project: Recalling the impact of experience on a belief

Developing Insight into Thinking and Writing

Traditionally, when people refer to a critical thinker, they mean someone who
has developed an understanding of today's complex world, a thoughtful per¬
spective on ideas and issues, the capacity for insight and good judgment, and
sophisticated reasoning and language abilities. Critical thinkers are able to
articulate their ideas clearly and persuasively in writing, to understand and
evaluate the credibility of what they read, and to discuss ideas with others in
an informed, productive fashion. These goals of higher education have re¬
mained remarkably similar for several thousand years. In ancient Greece,
most advanced students studied rhetoric in order to effect persuasion and
studied philosophy in order to achieve wisdom. (The Greek word philosophos
means "lover of wisdom.") In the modern world, many college students do
likewise, in order to become informed critical thinkers and capable speakers
and writers.
The word critical comes from the Greek word kritikos, which means "able
to perceive, detect, judge, or analyze." By questioning and analyzing, by
evaluating and making sense of information, we examine our own thinking
and that of others.
These thinking activities aid us in reaching the best possible conclusions

21
22 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

and decisions. Critical is related to criticize, which means "to question and
evaluate." Unfortunately, the ability to criticize is often used destructively, to
tear down someone else's thinking. Criticism, however, can also be construc¬
tive analyzing for the purpose of developing better understanding. To de¬
velop your abilities to think critically and write thoughtfully, it is important
to offer and receive constructive criticism.
We noted in the last chapter that thinking is the way you make sense of
the world; thinking critically is thinking about your thinking so that you can
clarify and improve it. If you can understand the way your mind operates
when you work toward your goals, make informed decisions, and solve com¬
plex problems, you can learn to think more effectively in these situations. In
this chapter, you will explore ways to examine your thinking so that you can
develop it to the fullest extent possible. That is, you will develop your ability
to think critically.

Thinking Critically: the organized cognitive process we use to

carefully examine our thinking and the thinking of others, in
order to clarify and improve our understanding.

Analogously, writing thoughtfully involves developing insight into the

writing process so that you can express ideas clearly, coherently, and persua¬
sively.

Writing Thoughtfully: thinking critically as we move through

the process of writing.

This chapter explores various qualities that characterize a critical thinker

and thoughtful writer, including the following:

■ Thinking actively
■ Thinking independently
■ Viewing a situation from different perspectives
■ Supporting a point of view with evidence and reasons

Thinking Actively and Writing

When you think critically, you are actively using your intelligence, knowl¬
edge, and abilities to deal effectively with life's situations by

■ getting involved in potentially useful projects and activities instead of re¬

maining disengaged.
 Thinking Actively and Writing 23

■ taking initiative in making decisions on your own instead of waiting

passively to be told what to think or do.
■ following through on your commitments instead of giving up when you
encounter difficulties.
■ taking responsibility for the consequences of your decisions rather than
unjustifiably blaming others or events "beyond your control."

Similarly, when you write thoughtfully, you act in the following ways:

■ You become involved in the subject you are writing about, and because
the writing process stimulates your thinking, you often find ideas that
you were unaware of until you started writing. Also, if you keep a jour¬
nal or notebook and make writing part of your daily life, you find your¬
self more involved in and more reflective about your world.
■ You take initiative as you develop confidence in your writer's voice, so
you express your perspectives instead of imitating the ideas of others.
■ You follow through as you revise and edit, in order to produce your best
effort.
■ You make yourself responsible for your work. That is, you begin assign¬
ments promptly and budget enough time to complete them. Though
your professors will guide you, and your classmates and writing center
tutors will make suggestions about your drafts, you are in charge of
your writing, and it is up to you to complete it honestly and well.

When you are thinking actively, you are not just waiting for something to
happen. You are engaged in the process of achieving goals, making decisions,
analyzing issues, and writing thoughtfully.
Imagine, for example, that you are unsure of which career to choose. To
make an intelligent decision, you have to work actively to secure informa¬
tion, explore various possibilities, speak with people experienced in your ar¬
eas of interest, and then critically reflect on all these factors. Thinking
critically requires that you think actively—not react passively—to deal effec¬
tively with life's situations.

Influences on Your Thinking

As our minds grow and develop, we are exposed to influences that encour¬
age us to think actively. We also, however, have many experiences that en¬
courage us to think passively. For example, some analysts believe that when
people, especially children, spend much of their time watching television in¬
stead of reading and writing, they are being influenced to think passively,
thus inhibiting their intellectual growth. Listed here are some of the influ¬
ences we all experience in our lives, along with space for you to add others
you are aware of. As you read through the list, place an A next to items that
you believe influence you to think actively and a P next to items that you feel
make you more passive.
 24 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

Becoming a critical thinker and thoughtful writer transforms you in positive

ways by helping you develop your own well-reasoned viewpoints, express
yourself clearly, and make informed choices.
 Thinking Actively and Writing 25

ACTIVITIES PEOPLE

Reading books Family members

Writing Friends
Taking drugs Employers
Drinking alcohol Advertisers
Drawing and painting Teachers
Playing video games Police officers
Playing sports Religious leaders
Listening to music Politicians

Of course, certain people or activities can act as either active or passive

influences, depending on specific situations and your individual responses.
For example, consider employers. If you are performing a routine, repetitive
task—such as a summer job in a peanut-butter cracker plant, hand-scooping
2,000 pounds of peanut butter a day—the very nature of the work encourages
passive, uncreative thinking (although it might also lead to creative day¬
dreaming!). You are also influenced to think passively if an employer gives
you detailed instructions for performing every task, instructions that permit
no exception or deviation. On the other hand, when an employer gives you
general areas of responsibility within which you are expected to make
thoughtful and creative decisions, you are being stimulated to think actively
and independently.
These contrasting styles of supervision are mirrored in different ap¬
proaches to raising children. Some parents encourage children to be active
thinkers by teaching them to express themselves clearly, make independent
decisions, look at different points of view, and choose what they think is right.
Other parents influence their children to be passive thinkers by not letting
them do things on their own. These parents give detailed instructions to be
followed without question and make the important decisions for their chil¬
dren. Such parents, reluctant to give their children significant responsibilities,
unintentionally create dependent thinkers who are not well adapted to mak¬
ing independent decisions and assuming responsibility for their own lives.
Similar experiences occur in college. You will probably find that some of
your professors will encourage you to think actively by expecting you to ap¬
ply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the information you are acquiring.
These professors may assign independent research projects, give essay ex¬
ams, and require you to write papers in which you must bring your informed
perspective to the course material. Other professors may expect you to
represent the information from class lectures and the textbooks, but not ask
for your perspective—an approach that may not encourage active thinking.
26 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

THINKING-*-* WRITING ACTIVITY 2.1

Active and Passive Influences

Identify one important influence in your life that mainly stimulates you to think
actively; then identify one that encourages you to think passively. For each,
write an explanation of how it has affected your thinking. Provide at least two
specific examples for each influence.

Ways to Approaching Writing

Developing your ability to think actively, to use your mind in an initiative-
taking way is crucial for becoming an effective writer. The Thinking-* *
Writing Model (page 8) shows that active, creative, critical thinking is im¬
portant throughout the writing process, and each chapter in this book deals
with some aspect of the thinking-* -^writing connection.
To find topics for your writing, you need to think creatively first, to gen¬
erate a variety of ideas, then think critically to select the ones that you can
use. You can ask yourself what you already know about your topics; then you
can think about what you need to find out and how to search for the infor¬
mation. As you decide what to include in your writing, you must evaluate
your own ideas and those of others. You have to consider what thinking pat¬
terns you will use to organize your ideas, so you should compare alternatives
before selecting the most appropriate forms.
As you write, you want to remain conscious of both your purpose and
your audience, as Chapter 1 points out. When you revise drafts, you will be
thinking most actively and critically, deciding what to say and how to orga¬
nize it. Chapter 4 emphasizes revision.
The questions suggested on pages 15-16 in Chapter 1 are designed to
bring about active thinking, as are the suggestions that accompany each Writ¬
ing Project.

Thinking Independently
Answer the following questions, on the basis of what you believe to be true.

Yes No Not Sure

1. Is the earth flat?
2. Is there a God?
3. Is abortion wrong?
4. Is democracy the best form of government?
5. Should men be the breadwinners and
women the homemakers?
 Thinking Independently 27

Your responses to these questions reveal aspects of the way your mind
works, beliefs you have developed that you express in your speaking and writ¬
ing. How did you arrive at these conclusions? Your views on these and many
other issues probably had their beginnings with your family, especially your
parents or other adults who brought you up. When you were little, you were
very dependent on those adults, and you were influenced by the way they saw
the world. As you grew up, you learned how to think, feel, and behave in var¬
ious situations. Very likely your teachers included your brothers and sisters,
friends, religious leaders, schoolteachers, books, television, and so on. You
absorbed most of what you learned without even being aware of doing so.
Many of your ideas about the issues raised in the five questions you just an¬
swered probably were shaped by experiences you had while growing up.
As a result of your ongoing experiences, however, your mind—and your
thinking—have continued to mature. Instead of simply accepting the views
of others, you have gradually developed the ability to examine your earlier
thinking and to decide how much of it still makes sense to you and whether
you should accept it. Now, when you think through important ideas, use this
standard in making a decision: Are there good reasons or evidence that sup¬
port this thinking? If there are, you can actively decide to adopt these ideas.
If the ideas do not make sense, you can modify or reject them.
Of course, you may not always examine your own thinking or the think¬
ing of others so carefully. In fact, people often continue to believe in the same
ideas they were brought up with, without ever examining and deciding for
themselves what to think. Or they may blindly reject the beliefs they were
brought up with, without really examining them.
How do you know when you have examined and adopted ideas yourself
instead of simply borrowing them from others? One indication of having
thought your ideas through is being able to explain why you believe in them,
telling the reasons that led you to these conclusions.
Still, not all reasons and evidence are equally strong or accurate. For ex¬
ample, in Europe before the fifteenth century, the common belief that the
earth was flat was supported by the following reasons and evidence:

People of Authority: Many educational and religious authorities taught

that the earth was flat.
Recorded References: The written opinions of scientific experts supported
belief in a flat earth.
Observed Evidence: No person had ever circumnavigated the earth.
Personal Experience: From a normal vantage point, the earth looks flat.
 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 2.2

Evaluating Beliefs
For each of the five views you expressed at the beginning of this section, ex¬
plain how you arrived at it and state the reasons and evidence that you believe
support it.

1. Example: Is the earth flat?

Belief: I am convinced that the earth is round.
Reasons/E vide rice:
a. People of Authority: My parents and teachers taught me this.
b. Recorded References: I read about this in science textbooks and saw films
and videos.
c. Observed Evidence: I have seen a sequence of photographs taken from
outer space that show the earth as a globe.
d. Personal Experience: When I flew across the country, I could see the hori¬
zon line changing.
2. Is there a God?
3. Is abortion wrong?
4. Is democracy the best form of government?
5. Should men be the breadwinners and women the homemakers?

To evaluate the strengths and accuracy of the reasons and evidence you
identified for holding your beliefs on the five issues, address questions such as
the following:

People of Authority: Are the authorities knowledgeable in this area? Are they
reliable? Have they ever given inaccurate information? Do other authorities
disagree with them?
Recorded References: What are the credentials of the authors? Do other authors
disagree with their opinions? On what reasons and evidence do the authors
base their opinions?
Observed Evidence: What is the source and foundation of the evidence? Can
the evidence be interpreted differently? Does the evidence support the
conclusion?
Personal Experience-. What were the circumstances under which the experi¬
ences took place? Were distortions or mistakes in perception possible?
Have other people had either similar or conflicting experiences? Are there
other explanations for your experience?

As a college writer, you are going to apply these questions to material

you encounter while gathering information for papers or reports. The oppo¬
site of thinking for yourself is simply accepting the thinking of others with¬
out examining or questioning it.
Learning to become an independent, critical thinker and thoughtful writer
 Viewing Situations from Different Perspectives 29

is a complex, ongoing process that involves the abilities we have been exam¬
ining in this chapter to this point:

■ Thinking actively
■ Thinking independently

Viewing Situations from Different Perspectives

A critical thinker is someone who is willing to listen to other views and new
ideas and examine them carefully. No one person has all the answers! Your
beliefs represent just one perspective on whatever problem you want to solve
or situation you are trying to understand. In addition to your own particular
viewpoint, there may be others, equally important, that you need to consider
if you are to develop a more complete understanding of the problem or situ¬
ation. Learning to think and write at a high level, in fact, requires this.
Perspective-taking is essential to becoming a thoughtful writer. To begin
with, exploring topics from a variety of vantage points is often the best way
to present a comprehensive analysis of the subject you are writing about.
When you are tied to only one perspective, your writing tends to be one¬
sided and superficial. Second, effective writing depends on always having a
clear sense of your readers, the audience for whom you are writing. The abil¬
ity to keep focus on that audience includes being able to see things from their
point of view, to think empathetically within their frame of reference, and to
understand their perspective. Finally, in order to produce your most accom¬
plished writing, you need to be open to the informed comments and sugges¬
tions of others and flexible enough to use that feedback to refine your written
expression.
Consider the following situation:
Imagine that you have been employed at a new job for the past six
months. Although you enjoy the challenge of your responsibilities and are
performing well, you simply cannot complete all your work during office
hours. To keep up, you have to work late, take work home, and occasionally
even work on weekends. When you explain this to your employer, she says
that although she is sorry that the job interferes with your personal life, it has
to be done. She suggests that you view this as an investment in your future
and try to work more efficiently. She reminds you that many other people
would be happy to have your position.

■ What is your initial reaction to your employer's response?

■ Describe this situation from the employer's standpoint, identifying rea¬
sons that might support her views.
■ Describe some different approaches that you and your employer might
take toward resolving this situation.
30 Chapter 2 ,
Thinking Critically Writing Thoughtfully

For most of the important issues and problems in your life, one view¬
point is simply not adequate to give a full and satisfactory understanding. To
increase and deepen your knowledge, you must seek other perspectives. Some¬
times you can accomplish this by using your imagination to visualize other
viewpoints. Usually, however, you need to seek actively (and listen to) other
people's viewpoints. It is often very difficult to see things from points of view
other than your own; if you are not careful, you can make the serious mistake
of assuming that the way you see things is the way they really are. In order
to identify with perspectives other than your own, then, you also have to
work to grasp the reasons for these alternate viewpoints. This approach,
which stimulates you to evaluate your beliefs critically, is enhanced by writ¬
ing: writing about beliefs encourages people to explain their reasons for hold¬
ing them.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 2.3

Two Sides of a Belief

Describe in detail a belief of yours that you feel very strongly about. Then ex¬
plain the reasons or experiences that led you to this belief.
Next, describe a point of view that is different from your belief. Identify
some of the reasons for someone s having that point of view. A student exam¬
ple follows.

STUDENT WRITING
A Belief that I Feel Strongly About
by Olavia Heredia

I used to think that we should always try everything in our power to

keep a person alive. But now I strongly believe that a person has a
right to die in peace and with dignity. I believe this now because of
my father’s illness and death.
It all started on Christmas Day, December 25, 1987, when my father
was admitted to the hospital. The doctors diagnosed his condition as
a heart attack. Following this episode, he was readmitted and dis¬
charged from several different hospitals. On June 18, 1988, he was
hospitalized for what was initially thought to be pneumonia but
which turned out to be lung cancer. He began chemotherapy treat¬
ments. When complications occurred, he had to be placed on a res¬
pirator. At first he couldn’t speak or eat. But then they operated on
him and placed the tube from the machine in his throat instead of his
mouth. He was then able to eat and move his mouth. He underwent
 Viewing Situations from Different Perspectives 31

radiation therapy when they discovered he had three tumors in his

head and that the cancer had spread all over his body. We had to sign
a paper which asked us to indicate, if he should stop breathing,
whether we would want the hospital to try to revive him or just let
him go. We decided to let him go because the doctors couldn’t guar¬
antee that he wouldn’t become brain-dead. At first they said that
there was a forty percent chance that he would get off the machine.
But instead of that happening, the percentage went down.
It was hard seeing him like that since I was so close to him. But it
was even harder when he didn't want To see me. He said that by see¬
ing me suffer, his suffering was greater.'So I had to cut down on see¬
ing him. Everybody that visited him said that he had changed
dramatically. They couldn't even recognize him.
The last two days of his life were the worst. I prayed that God
would relieve him of his misery. I had come very close to taking him
off the machine in order for him not to suffer, but I didn’t. Finally he
passed away on November 22, 1988, with not the least bit of peace
or dignity. The loss was great then and still is, but at least he’s not suf¬
fering. That’s why I believe that when people have terminal diseases
with no hope of recovery, they shouldn't place them on machines to
prolong their lives of suffering, but instead they should be permitted
to die with as much peace and dignity possible.
Somebody else might believe very strongly that we should try
everything in our power to keep people alive. It doesn’t matter what
kind of illness or disease the people have, whaFs important is that
they are kept alive, especially if they are loved ones. Some people
want to keep their loved ones alive with them as long as they can,
even if it’s by a machine. They also believe it is up to God and med¬
ical science to determine whether people should live or die. Some¬
times doctors give them hope that their loved ones will recover, and
many people wish for a miracle to happen. With these hopes and
wishes in mind, they wait and try everything in order to prolong a life,
even if the doctors tell them that there is nothing that can be done.

Being open to new ideas and different viewpoints means being flexible
enough to change or modify one's own ideas in the light of new information
or better insight. People do have a tendency to cling to the beliefs they were
brought up with and the conclusions they have arrived at. If you are going to
continue to grow and develop as a thinker, however, you have to be willing
to change or modify your beliefs when evidence suggests that you should.
For example, imagine that you have been brought up with certain views
concerning an ethnic group—African American, Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian,
Native American, or any other. As you mature and your experience increases,
you may find that the evidence of your experience conflicts with those earlier
32 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

views. As a critical thinker, you will become open to receiving new evidence
and flexible enough to change and modify your ideas.
In contrast to open and flexible thinking, uncritical thinking tends to be
one-sided and closed-minded. People who think uncritically are convinced
that they alone see things as they really are and that everyone who disagrees
with them is wrong. It is very difficult for them to step outside their own view¬
points and look at issues from other people's perspectives. Words often used
to describe this type of person include dogmatic, subjective, and egocentric.

Supporting Diverse Perspectives with Reasons

and Evidence
When you are thinking critically, what you think makes sense and you can of¬
fer sound reasons for your views. As a thoughtful writer, you cannot simply
take a position on an issue or make a claim; you have to back up your views, re¬
inforce them with information that you feel supports your position. There is
an important distinction between what you believe and why you believe it.
If you want to know all sides of an issue, you have to be able to give sup¬
porting reasons and evidence not just for your own views, but also for the
views of others. Seeing several sides of an issue combines these two critical
thinking abilities:

■ Viewing issues from different perspectives and

■ Supporting diverse viewpoints with reasons and evidence.

Consider the issue of whether air bags should be standard equipment for
cars. As you try to make sense of this issue, you should attempt to identify
not just the reasons for your view, but also the reasons for other views. Fol¬
lowing are reasons that support each view of this issue.

ISSUE
Airbags should be standard Air bags should not be standard
equipment. equipment.
Supporting Reasons Supporting Reasons
1. Studies show that air bags save 1. Air bags sometimes injure and
lives in accidents. even kill children and small
adults.
2. Studies show that airbags reduce 2. Air bags should not be forced on
injury in accidents. citizens of a free country.

Now see if you can identify additional supporting reasons for each view on
making air bags standard equipment.
For each of the following issues, identify reasons that support each side.
 Supporting Diverse Perspectives with Reasons and Evidence 33

As critical thinkers and thoughtful writers we have an oblisation to appre¬

ciate diverse perspectives on complex issues and develop informed opin¬
ions that are supported by compelling reasons. © Hazel Hankin/Stock Boston.

ISSUE

1. Multiple-choice and true/false Multiple-choice and true /false ex¬

exams should be given in col- ams should not be given in college-
lege-level courses. level courses.

ISSUE

2. It is better to live in a society in It is better to live in a society that

which the government plays a minimizes the role of the govern-
major role in citizens' lives. ment in citizens' lives.

ISSUE

3. The best way to deal with crime is Long prison sentences will not re-
to impose long prison sentences. duce crime.
 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

ISSUE
4. When a couple divorce, the chil¬ When a couple divorce, the court
dren should choose the parent should decide all custody issues re¬
with whom they wish to live. garding the children.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 2.4

Viewing Different Perspectives

Seeing different perspectives is crucial to getting a more complete under¬
standing of ideas expressed in passages you read. Read the two passages that
follow. Then, for each passage, do these four things.-
1. Identify the main idea of each passage.
2. List the reasons that support the main idea.
3. Develop another view of the main issue.
4. List the reasons that support the other view.

If we want auto safety but continue to believe in auto profits, sales, styling,
and annual obsolescence, there will be no serious accomplishments. The mo¬
ment we put safety ahead of these other values, something will happen. If we
want better municipal hospitals but are unwilling to disturb the level of spend¬
ing for defense, for highways, for household appliances, hospital service will
not improve. If we want peace but still believe that countries with differing
ideologies are threats to one another, we will not get peace. What is confusing
is that up to now, while we have wanted such things as conservation, auto
safety, hospital care, and peace, we have tried wanting them without changing
consciousness; that is, while continuing to accept those underlying values that
stand in the way of what we want. The machine can be controlled at the "con¬
sumer" level only by people who change their whole value system, their whole
world view, their whole way of life. One cannot favor saving our wildlife and
wear a fur coat.

Most wicked deeds are done because the doer proposes some good to
himself. The liar lies to gain some end,- the swindler and thief want things
which, if honestly got, might be good in themselves. Even the murderer may be
removing an impediment to normal desires or gaining possession of something
his victim keeps from him. None of these people usually does evil for evil’s
sake. They are selfish or unscrupulous, but their deeds are not gratuitously evil.
The killer for sport has no such comprehensible motive. He prefers death to
life, darkness to light. He gets nothing except the satisfaction of saying, "Some¬
thing which wanted to live is dead. There is that much less vitality, conscious¬
ness, and, perhaps, joy in the universe. I am the Spirit that Denies." When a
human wantonly destroys one of humankind’s own works we call him Vandal.
When he wantonly destroys one of the works of God we call him Sportsman. '
 Readings About Experiences That Affected Beliefs 35

Readings About Experiences That Affected Beliefs

In the following narratives, four writers reflect on learning experiences that
caused them to alter beliefs about themselves, about other people, and about
ways to live their lives. Malcolm X describes his odyssey of learning to read
and write in prison, Annie Dillard shares the impact of her first scientific ob¬
servation, N. Scott Momaday describes a loss of childhood innocence, and
Peter Rondinone writes on the transforming nature of his college experience.

from The Autobiography of Malcolm X

by Malcolm X with Alex Haley

I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what I

wanted to convey in letters that I wrote, especially those to Mr. Elijah
Muhammad. In the street, I had been the most articulate hustler out
there—I had commanded attention when I said something. But now,
trying to write simple English, I not only wasn't articulate, I wasn't
even functional. How would I sound writing in slang, the way I would
say it, something such as, "Look, daddy, let me pull your coat about a
cat, Elijah Muhammad—"
Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or
those who read something I've said, will think I went to school far be¬
yond the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to my prison
studies.
It had really begun back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first
made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge. Bimbi had always taken
charge of any conversation he was in, and I had tried to emulate him.
But every book I picked up had few sentences which didn't contain
anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have
been in Chinese. When I just skipped those words, of course, I really
ended up with little idea of what the book said. So I had come to the
Norfolk Prison Colony still going through only book-reading motions.
Pretty soon, I would have quit even these motions, unless I had received
the motivation that I did.
I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary—to
study, to learn some words. I was lucky enough to reason also that I
should try to improve my penmanship. It was sad. I couldn't even write
in a straight line. It was both ideas together that moved me to request a
dictionary along with some tablets and pencils from the Norfolk Prison
Colony school.
5 I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary's
pages. I'd never realized so many words existed! I didn't know which
36 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I be¬
gan copying.
In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet
everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks.
I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, every¬
thing I'd written on the tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read
my own handwriting.
I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words—im¬
mensely proud to realize that not only had I written so much at one
time, but I'd written words that I never knew were in the world. More¬
over, with a little effort, I also could remember what many of these
words meant. I reviewed the words whose meaning I didn't remember.
Funny thing, from the dictionary's first page right now, that "aardvark"
springs to my mind. The dictionary had a picture of it, a long-tailed,
long-eared, burrowing African mammal, which lives off termites
caught by sticking out its tongue as an anteater does for ants.
I was so fascinated that I went on—I copied the dictionary's next
page. And the same experience came when I studied that. With every
succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from
history. Actually the dictionary is like a miniature encyclopedia. Finally
the dictionary's A section had filled a whole tablet—and I went on into
the B's. That was the way I started copying what eventually became the
entire dictionary. It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to
pick up handwriting speed. Between what I wrote in my tablet, and
writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I
wrote a million words.
10 I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could
for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand
what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imag¬
ine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then
until I left the prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in
the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn't have gotten me out
of books with a wedge. Between Mr. Muhammad's teachings, my cor¬
respondence, my visitors—usually Ella and Reginald—and my reading
of books, months passed without my even thinking about being im¬
prisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.
The Norfolk Prison Colony's library was in the school building. A va¬
riety of classes was taught there by instructors who came from such
places as Flarvard and Boston universities. The vveek 1 y debates be¬
tween inmate teams were also held in the school building. You would
be astonished to know how worked up convict debaters and audiences
would get over subjects like "Should Babies Be Fed Milk?"
Available on the prison library's shelves were books on just about
every general subject. Much of the big private collection that Parkhurst
had willed to the prison was still in crates and boxes in the back of the
 Readings About Experiences That Affected Beliefs 37

library thousands of old books. Some of them looked ancient: covers

faded, old-time parchment-looking binding. Parkhurst, I've mentioned,
seemed to have been principally interested in history and religion. He
had the money and the special interest to have a lot of books that you
wouldn t have in general circulation. Any college library would have
been lucky to get that collection.
As you can imagine, especially in a prison where there was heavy
emphasis on rehabilitation, an inmate was smiled upon if he demon¬
strated an unusually intense interest in books. There was a sizable num¬
ber of well-read inmates, especially the popular debaters. Some were
said by many to be practically walking encyclopedias. They were al¬
most celebrities. No university would ask any student to devour litera¬
ture as I did when this new world opened to me, of being able to read
and understand.
I read more in my room than in the library itself. An inmate who was
known to read a lot could check out more than the permitted maximum
number of books. I preferred reading in the total isolation of my own
room.
When I had progressed to really serious reading, every night at about
ten (P.M.) I would be outraged with the "lights out." It always seemed
to catch me right in the middle of something engrossing.
Fortunately, right outside my door was a corridor light that cast a
glow into my room. The glow was enough to read by, once my eyes ad¬
justed to it. So when "lights out" came, I would sit on the floor where I
could continue reading in that glow.
At one-hour intervals the night guards paced past every room. Each
time I heard the approaching footsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned
sleep. And as soon as the guard passed, I got back out of bed onto the
floor area of that light-glow, where I would read for another fifty-eight
minutes—until the guard approached again. That went on until three or
four every morning. Three or four hours of sleep a night was enough for
me. Often in the years in the streets I had slept less than that.

Handed My Own Life

by Annie Dillard

After I read The Field Book of Ponds and Streams several times, I longed
for a microscope. Everybody needed a microscope. Detectives used mi¬
croscopes, both for the FBI and at Scotland Yard. Although usually I had
to save my tiny allowance for things I wanted, that year for Christmas
my parents gave me a microscope kit.
In a dark basement corner, on a white enamel table, I set up the mi¬
croscope kit. I supplied a chair, a lamp, a batch of jars, a candle, and a
Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

pile of library books. The microscope kit supplied a blunt black three-
speed microscope, a booklet, a scalpel, a dropper, an ingenious device
for cutting thin segments of fragile tissue, a pile of clean slides and
cover slips, and a dandy array of corked test tubes.
One of the test tubes contained "hay infusion." Hay infusion was a
wee brown chip of grass blade. You added water to it, and after a week
it became a jungle in a drop, full of one-celled animals. This did not
work for me. All I saw in the microscope after a week was a wet chip of
dried grass, much enlarged.
Another test tube contained "diatomaceous earth." This was, I be¬
lieved, an actual pinch of the white cliffs of Dover. On my palm it
was an airy, friable chalk. The booklet said it was composed of the sili-
caceous bodies of diatoms—one-celled creatures that lived in, as it
were, small glass jewelry boxes with fitted lids. Diatoms, I read, come
in a variety of transparent geometrical shapes. Broken and dead and
dug out of geological deposits, they made chalk, and a fine abrasive
used in silver polish and toothpaste. What I saw in the microscope
must have been the fine abrasive—grit enlarged. It was years before I
saw a recognizable, whole diatom. The kit's diatomaceous earth was a
bust.
All that winter I played with the microscope. I prepared slides from
things at hand, as the books suggested. I looked at the transparent
membrane inside an onion's skin and saw the cells. I looked at a section
of cork and saw the cells, and at scrapings from the inside of my cheek,
ditto. I looked at my blood and saw not much; I looked at my urine and
saw long iridescent crystals, for the drop had dried.
All this was very well, but I wanted to see the wildlife I had read
about. I wanted especially to see the famous amoeba, who had eluded
me. He was supposed to live in the hay infusion, but I hadn't found him
there. He lived outside in warm ponds and streams, too, but I lived in
Pittsburgh, and it had been a cold winter.
Finally late that spring I saw an amoeba. The week before, I had gath¬
ered puddle water from Frick Park, it had been festering in a jar in the
basement. This June night after dinner I figured I had waited long
enough. In the basement at my microscope table I spread a scummy
drop of Frick Park puddle water on a slide, peeked in, and lo, there was
the famous amoeba. He was as blobby and grainy as his picture; I
would have known him anywhere.
Before I had watched him at all, I ran upstairs. My parents were still
at table, drinking coffee. They, too, could see the famous amoeba. I told
them, bursting, that he was all set up, that they should hurry before his
water dried. It was the chance of a lifetime.
Father had stretched out his long legs and was tilting back in his
chair. Mother sat with her knees crossed, in blue slacks, smoking a
Chesterfield. The dessert dishes were still on the table. My sisters were
 Readings About Experiences That Affected Beliefs 39

nowhere in evidence. It was a warm evening; the big dining-room win¬

dows gave onto blooming rhododendrons.
Mother regarded me warmly. She gave me to understand that she
was glad I had found what I had been looking for, but that she and Fa¬
ther were happy to sit with their coffee, and would not be coming
down.
She did not say, but I understood at once, that they had their pursuits
(coffee?) and I had mine. She did not say, but I began to understand
then, that you do what you do out of your private passion for the thing
itself.
I had essentially been handed my own life. In subsequent years my
parents would praise my drawings and poems, and supply me with
books, art supplies, and sports equipment, and listen to my troubles
and enthusiasms, and supervise my hours, and discuss and inform, but
they would not get involved with my detective work, nor hear about
my reading, nor inquire about my homework or term papers or exams,
nor visit the salamanders I caught, nor listen to me play the piano, nor
attend my field hockey games, nor fuss over my insect collection with
me, or my poetry collection or stamp collection or rock collection. My
days and nights were my own to plan and fill.
When I left the dining room that evening and started down the dark
basement stairs, I had a life, I sat to my wonderful amoeba, and there he
was, rolling his grains more slowly now, extending an arc of his edge for
a foot and drawing himself along by that foot, and absorbing it again
and rolling on. I have him some more pond water.
I had hit pay dirt. For all I knew, there were paramecia, too, in that
pond water, or daphniae, or stentors, or any of the many other creatures
I had read about and never seen: volvox, the spherical algal colony; eu-
glena with its one red eye; the elusive glassy diatom; hydra, rotifers,
water bears, worms. Anything was possible. The sky was the limit.

The End of My Childhood

by N. Scott Momaday

At Jemez I came to the end of my childhood. There were no schools

within easy reach. I had to go nearly thirty miles to school at Bernalillo,
and one year I lived away in Albuquerque. My mother and father
wanted me to have the benefit of a sound preparation for college, and
so we read through many high school catalogues. After long delibera¬
tion we decided that I should spend my last year of high school at a mil¬
itary academy in Virginia.
The day before I was to leave I went walking across the river to the
red mesa, where many times before I had gone to be alone with my
thoughts. And I had climbed several times to the top of the mesa and
looked among the old ruins there for pottery. This time I chose to climb
Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

the north end, perhaps because I had not gone that way before and
wanted to see what it was. It was a difficult climb, and when I got to the
top I was spent. I lingered among the ruins for more than an hour, I
judge, waiting for my strength to return. From there I could see the
whole valley below, the fields, the river, and the village. It was all very
beautiful, and the sight of it filled me with longing.
I looked for an easier way to come down, and at length I found a
broad, smooth runway of rock, a shallow groove winding out like a
stream. It appeared to be safe enough, and I started to follow it. There
were steps along the way, a stairway, in effect. But the steps became
deeper and deeper, and at last I had to drop down the length of my
body and more. Still it seemed convenient to follow in the groove of
rock. I was more than halfway down when I came upon a deep, funnel-
shaped formation in my path. And there I had to make a decision. The
slope on either side was extremely steep and forbidding, and yet I
thought that 1 could work my way down on either side. The formation
at my feet was something else. It was perhaps ten or twelve feet deep,
wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, where there appeared to be a
level ledge. If I could get down through the funnel to the ledge, I should
be all right; surely the rest of the way down was negotiable. But I real¬
ized that there could be no turning back. Once I was down in that rocky
chute I could not get up again, for the round wall which nearly encir¬
cled the space there was too high and sheer. I elected to go down into it,
to try for the ledge directly below. I eased myself down the smooth,
nearly vertical wall on my back, pressing my arms and legs outward
against the sides. After what seemed a long time I was trapped in the
rock. The ledge was no longer there below me; it had been an optical il¬
lusion. Now, in this angle of vision, there was nothing but the ground,
far, far below, and jagged boulders set there like teeth. I remember that
my arms were scraped and bleeding, stretched out against the walls
with all the pressure that I could exert. When once I looked down I saw
that my legs, also spread out and pressed hard against the walls, were
shaking violently. I was in an impossible situation: I could not move in
any direction, save downward in a fall, and I could not stay beyond an¬
other minute where I was. I believed then that I would die there, and I
saw with a terrible clarity the things of the valley below. They were not
the less beautiful to me. It seemed to me that I grew suddenly very calm
in view of that beloved world. And I remember nothing else of that mo¬
ment. I passed out of my mind, and the next thing I knew I was sitting
down on the ground, very cold in the shadows, and looking up at the
rock where I had been within an eyelash of eternity. That was a strange
thing in my life, and I think of it as the end of an age. I should never
again see the world as I saw it on the other side of that moment, in the
bright reflection of time lost. There are such reflections, and for some of
them I have the names.
 Readings About Experiences That Affected Beliefs 41

from Independence and the Inward "I"

by Peter J. Rondinone

The fact is, I didn t learn much in high school. I spent my time on the
front steps of the building smoking grass with the dudes from the
dean s squad. For kicks we'd grab a freshman, tell him we were under¬
cover cops, handcuff him to a banister, and take his money. Then we'd
go to the back of the building, cop some “downs/7 and nod away the
day behind the steps in the lobby. The classrooms were overcrowded
anyhow, and the teachers knew it. They also knew where to find me
when they wanted to make weird deals: If I agreed to read a book and
do an oral report, they'd pass me. So I did it and graduated with a "gen¬
eral77 diploma. I was a New York City public school kid.
I hung out on a Bronx streetcorner with a group of guys who called
themselves "The Davidson Boys" and sang songs like "Daddy-lo-lo."
Everything we did could be summed up with the word "snap." That's
a snap." She's a "snap." We had a "snap." Friday nights we'd paint
ourselves green and run through the streets swinging baseball bats. Or
we'd get into a little rap in the park. It was all very perilous. Even
though I'd seen a friend stabbed for wearing the wrong colors and an¬
other blown away for "messin"' with some dude's woman, I was too
young to realize that my life too might be headed toward a violent end.
Then one night I swallowed a dozen Tuminols and downed two
quarts of beer at a bar in Manhattan. I passed out in the gutter. I puked
and rolled under a parked car. Two girlfriends found me and carried me
home. My overprotective brother answered the door. When he saw
me—eyes rolling toward the back of my skull like rubber—he pushed
me down a flight of stairs. My skull hit the edge of a marble step with a
thud. The girls screamed. My parents came to the door and there I was:
a high school graduate, a failure, curled in a ball in a pool of blood.
The next day I woke up with dried blood on my face. I had no idea
what had happened. My sister told my. I couldn't believe it. Crying, my
mother confirmed the story. I had almost died! That scared hell out of
me. I knew I had to do something. I didn't know what. But pills and vi¬
olence didn't promise much of a future.
I went back to a high school counselor for advice. He suggested I go
to college.

On the day I received my letter of acceptance, I waited until dinner

to tell my folks. I was proud.
"Check out where I'm going," I said. I passed the letter to my father.
He looked at it.
"You jerk!" he said. "You wanna sell ties?" My mother grabbed the
letter.
Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

"God," she said. "Why don't you go to work already? Like other
people."
"Later for that," I said. "You should be proud."
At the time, of course, I didn't understand where my parents were
coming from. They were immigrants. They believed college was for rich
kids, not the ones who dropped downs and sang songs on street-
comers. ...
Anyhow, I wasn't about to listen to my parents and go to work; for a
dude like me, this was a big deal. So I left the dinner table and went to
tell my friends about my decision.

The Davidson Boys hung out in a rented storefront. They were sitting
around the pool table on milk boxes and broken pinball machines, spare
tires and dead batteries. I made my announcement. They stood up and
circled me like I was the star of a cockfight. Sucio stepped to the table
with a can of beer in one hand and a pool stick in the other.
"Wha' you think you gonna get out of college?" he said.
"I don't know, but I bet it beats this," I said. I shoved one of the pool
balls across the table. That was a mistake. The others banged their sticks
on the wood floor and chanted, "Oooh-ooh—snap, snap." Sucio put his
beer on the table.
"Bull!" he yelled. "I wash dishes with college dudes. You're like us—
nuttin', man." He pointed the stick at my nose.
Silence.
I couldn't respond. If I let the crowd know I thought their gig was un¬
cool, that I wanted out of the club, they would have taken it personally.
And they would have taken me outside and kicked my ass. So I lowered
my head. "Aw, hell, gimme a hit of beer," I said, as if it were all a joke.
But I left the comer and didn't go back.

I spent that summer alone, reading books like How to Succeed in Col¬
lege and 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary. My vocabulary was lim¬
ited to a few choice phrases like "Move over, Rover, and let Petey take
over." When my friends did call for me I hid behind the curtains. I knew
that if I was going to make it, I'd have to push these guys out of my con¬
sciousness as if I were doing the breaststroke in a sea of logs. I had work
to do, and people were time consuming. As it happened, all my heavy
preparations didn't amount to much.
On the day of the placement exams I went paranoid. Somehow I got
the idea that my admission to college was some ugly practical joke that
I wasn't prepared for. So I copped some downs and took the test nod¬
ding. The words floated on the page like flies on a crock of cream.
That made freshman year difficult. The administration had placed
me in all three remedial programs: basic writing, college skills, and
math. I was shocked. I had always thought of myself as smart. I was the
 Readings About Experiences That Affected Beliefs 43

only one in the neighborhood who read books. So I gave up the pills
and pushed aside another log.
The night before the first day of school, my brother walked into my
room and threw a briefcase on my desk. "Good luck, Joe College," he
said. He smacked me in the back of the head. Surprised, I went to bed
early.

In Basic Writing I the instructor, Regina Sackmary, chalked her name

in bold letters on the blackboard. I sat in the front row and reviewed my
How to Succeed lessons: Sit in front/don't let eyes wander to cracks on
ceilings/take notes on a legal pad/make note of all unfamiliar words
and books/listen for key phrases like "remember this," they are a pro¬
fessor s signals. The other students held pens over pads in anticipation.
Like me, they didn t know what to expect. We were public school kids
from lousy neighborhoods and we knew that some of us didn't have a
chance; but we were ready to work hard.
Before class we had rapped about our reasons for going to college.
Some said they wanted to be the first in the history of their families to
have a college education—they said their parents never went to college
because they couldn't afford it, or because their parents' parents were
too poor—and they said open admissions and free tuition ($65 per se¬
mester) was a chance to change that history. Others said they wanted to
be educated so they could return to their neighborhoods to help "the
people"; they were the idealists. Some foreigners said they wanted to
return to their own countries and start schools. And I said I wanted to
escape the boredom and the pain I had known as a kid on the streets.
But none of them said they expected a job. Or if they did they were re¬
minded that there were no jobs.
In math I was in this remedial program for algebra, geometry, and
trigonometry. But unlike high school math, which I thought was de¬
vised to boggle the mind for the sake of boggling, in this course I found
I could make a connection between different mathematical principles
and my life. For instance, there were certain basics I had to learn—call
them 1, 2, and 3—and unless they added up to 6 I'd probably be a fail¬
ure. I also got a sense of how math related to the world at large: Unless
the sum of the parts of a society equaled the whole there would be
chaos. And these insights jammed my head and made me feel like a kid
on a ferris wheel looking at the world for the first time. Everything
amazed me!
Like biology, hi high school I associated this science with stabbing
pins in the hearts of frogs for fun. Or getting high snorting small doses
of the chloroform used for experiments on fruit flies. But in college bi¬
ology I began to learn and appreciate not only how my own life processes
functioned but how there were thousands of other life processes I'd
never known existed. And this gave me a sense of power, because I could
44 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

deal with questions like. Why do plants grow? not as I had before, with
a simple spill of words:" 'Cause of the sun, man." I could actually explain
that there was a plant cycle and cycles within the plant cycle. You know
how the saying goes—a little knowledge is dangerous. Well, the more I
learned the more I ran my mouth off, especially with people who didn't
know as much as I did.
I remember the day Ms. Sackmary tossed Sartre's No Exit in my lap
and said, "Find the existential motif." I didn't know what to look for.
What was she talking about? I never studied philosophy. I turned to the
table of contents, but there was nothing under E. So I went to the library
and after much research I discovered the notion of the absurd. I couldn't
believe it. I told as many people as I could. I told them they were absurd,
their lives were absurd, everything was absurd. I became obsessed with
existentialism. I read Kafka, Camus, Dostoevski, and others in my spare
time. Then one day I found a line in a book that I believed summed up
my unusual admittance to the college and my determination to work
hard. I pasted it to the headboard of my bed. It said: "Everything is pos¬
sible."
To deal with the heavy workload from all my classes, I needed a
study schedule, so I referred to my How to Succeed book. I gave myself
an hour for lunch and reserved the rest of the time between classes and
evenings for homework and research. All this left me very little time for
friendships. But I stuck to my schedule and by the middle of the first
year I was getting straight A's. Nothing else mattered. Not even my
family.

When I entered my second year my family began to ask, "What do

you want to do?" And I got one of those cards from the registrar that has
to be filled out in a week or you're dropped from classes. It asked me to
declare my major. I had to make a quick decision. So I checked off BS de¬
gree, dentistry, though I didn't enroll in a single science course.
30 One course I did take that semester was The Writer and the City. The
professor, Ross Alexander, asked the class to keep a daily journal. He
said it should be as creative as possible and reflect some aspect of city
life. So I wrote about different experiences I had with my friends. For
example, I wrote "Miracle on 183rd Street" about the night "Raunchy"
Rick jumped a guy in the park and took his portable radio. When the
guy tried to fight back Rick slapped him in the face with the radio; then,
using the batteries that spilled out, he pounded this guy in the head un¬
til the blood began to puddle on the ground. Those of us on the sidelines
dragged Rick away. Ross attached notes to my papers that said things
like: "You really have a great hit of talent and ought to take courses in
creative writing and sharpen your craft! Hang on to it all for dear life."
In my junior year I forgot dentistry and registered as a creative writ¬
ing major. I also joined a college newspaper, The Campus. Though I
 Readings About Experiences That Affected Beliefs 45

knew nothing about journalism, I was advised that writing news was a
good way to learn the business. And as Ross once pointed out to me,
"As a writer you will need an audience."
I was given my first assignment. I collected piles of quotes and facts
and scattered the mess on a desk. I remember typing the story under
deadline pressure with one finger while the editors watched me strug¬
gle, probably thinking back to their own first stories. When I finished,
they passed the copy around. The editor-in-chief looked at it at last and
said. This isn t even English." Yet, they turned it over to a rewrite man
and the story appeared with my by-line. Seeing my name in print was
like seeing it in lights—flashbulbs popped in my head and I walked into
the school cafeteria that day expecting to be recognized by everyone.
My mother informed the relatives: "My son is a writer!"
Six months later I quit The Campus. A course in New Journalism had
made me realize that reporting can be creative. For the first time I read
writers like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, and my own news
stories began to turn into first-person accounts that read like short sto¬
ries. The Campus refused to publish my stuff, so I joined the Observation
Post, the only paper on campus that printed first-person material. I
wanted to get published.
My first Post feature article (a first-person news story on a proposed
beer hall at CCNY) was published on the front page. The staff was im¬
pressed enough to elect me assistant features editor. However, what
they didn't know was that the article had been completely rewritten by
the features editor. And the features editor had faith in me, so he never
told. He did my share of the work and I kept the title. As he put it:
"You'll learn by hanging around and watching. You show talent. You
might even get published professionally in 25 years!"
God, those early days were painful. Professors would tear up my pa¬
pers the day they were due and tell me to start over again, with a piece
of advice—"Try to say what you really mean." Papers I had spent weeks
writing. And I knew I lacked the basic college skills; I was a man re¬
porting to work without his tools. So I smiled when I didn't understand.
But sometimes it showed and I paid the price: A professor once told me
the only reason I'd pass his course was that I had a nice smile. Yes, those
were painful days.
And there were nights I was alone with piles of notebooks and text¬
books. I wanted to throw the whole mess out the window; I wanted to
give up. Nights the sounds of my friends singing on the corner drifted
into my room like fog over a graveyard and I was afraid I would be
swept away. And nights I was filled with questions but the answers
were like moon shadows on my curtains: I could see them but I could
not grasp them.
Yet I had learned a vital lesson from these countless hours of work in
isolation: My whole experience from the day I received my letter of
Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

acceptance enabled me to understand how in high school my sense of

self-importance came from being one of the boys, a member of the pack,
while in college the opposite was true. In order to survive, I had to curb
my herd instinct.
Nobody, nobody could give me what I needed to overcome my sense
of inadequacy. That was a struggle I had to work at on my own. It could
never be a group project. In the end, though people could point out
what I had to learn and where to learn it, I was always the one who did
the work; and what I learned I earned. And that made me feel as good
as being one of the boys. In short, college taught me to appreciate the
importance of being alone. I found it was the only way I could get any
serious work done.
 Readings About Experiences That Affected Beliefs 47

WRITING PROJECT

The Thinking* ’•Writing Activities and the readings in this chapter have en¬
couraged you to become an active thinker, to examine your beliefs, and to ob¬
serve how some thoughtful people have reflected on their learning
experiences. As you work on this project, reread what you wrote for the ac¬
tivities and think about the events and methods of narration in the readings.

WRITING PROJECT A Formative Experience

Write an essay telling of some experience that had an important im¬
pact on a belief that you held or hold. The belief might be about
yourself, about another person involved in the experience, or about
the issue that the experience illustrates. The experience may have
helped form your belief, or it may have changed or strengthened it.
You will explain your belief, of course, and describe the experience,
reflecting on what happened as you tell of its effects. You will prob¬
ably want to discuss the sources of the belief (page 28). Follow your
instructor’s directives as to length, format, and so forth.

Begin by considering the elements in the Thinking^ Writing Model.

Purpose
Examining our beliefs is a necessary beginning stage in developing critical
thinking abilities. Once we understand and evaluate our own starting points,
we can understand and evaluate other people's perspectives. Writing reflec¬
tive pieces about personal experiences brings insight into the ones that have
helped to define us as individuals and have shaped our views of the world.
When you reflect on and write about significant experiences, you begin to
view them in a new way and relate them to issues in your life. The record that
you create allows you to relive the experiences, rethink their significance,
share them with others, and profit from others' responses. In the essay you
are about to write, you will be explaining your experience and your belief but
not trying to convince your readers that they should adopt or reject the belief.
You are analyzing the meaning of your experience and the impact that it had
on your life.

Audience
When you write reflectively about your own experiences, you are as impor¬
tant a part of the audience as the people who will read the piece. The noted
author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has stated, "I write to understand
48 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

as much as to be understood." This form of writing acts a catalyst for

self-discovery by encouraging you to reflect on your past experience in a
disciplined, analytical way. As you write in this form, your guiding ideas
should include these questions:

■ How effectively am I communicating the richness and reality of this ex¬

perience?
■ How effectively have I analyzed the significance of this experience and
the lessons I learned from it?

If you believe that your writing is meeting these goals, it is likely that you are
moving toward helping other members of your audience share what you are
trying to express. However, as a critical thinker, you should still make the ex¬
tra effort to put yourself in those readers' position and view your writing
through their eyes. In doing so, you may find that there are details you have
to fill in and assumptions you have to make explicit in order to fully com¬
municate what you intend.

Subject
Autobiographical narratives provide interesting reading. Most of us like to
learn about what other people did and what they think their personal stories
mean. If the narrator is famous, readers can satisfy their curiosity about an
extraordinary life. If the narrator is a more ordinary person, readers often
identify with the experiences and can use them as warnings or inspirations
for their own lives.
The story must be well told, with thoughtfully selected events, graphic
details, and strong verbs. And as you draft and revise, keep your subject and
purpose in mind, so that the meaning you attach to your experience becomes
clear.

Writer
This Writing Project, like the others in Part One of this book, asks you to use
your own experience as the basis of an essay. This puts you in the position of
authority on the subject, which should give you confidence. Also, this project
invites you to tell a story; most people enjoy doing this. Your challenges are
to shape your story and to connect your story to your belief.

The Writing Process

One of this book's main goals is to help you think about your own writing
process, to tap its strengths, and to reduce its weaknesses. This project pro¬
vides a good opportunity for you to reflect on your writing process as you re¬
flect on a significant experience.
 The Writing Process 49

Generating Ideas
Brainstorm to find a suitable experience to write about. Look for an experi¬
ence that had a profound effect on your beliefs and that may have implica¬
tions for other people's lives. Once you have determined an experience to
write about, ask questions and write about your responses. Questions you
might ask include these:

■ What happened? (Outline the major events of the experience.)

■ How did you respond? (What were your thoughts, reactions, feelings?)
■ What roles did other people play? Was the place important? (Recall spe¬
cific details about what people did and said, and about the setting, to
make your retelling vivid for your audience.)
■ What was the result of the experience? How did it affect your belief?
■ As you reflect on it, what was valuable for you about the experience?
How has it influenced your life?

You may also refer to the questions for generating ideas in Chapter 1 for
other kinds of questions you can ask yourself.

Defining a Focus
In a few sentences, summarize the main point you wish to make in your es¬
say, given your subject, audience, and purpose. Then evaluate your focus: Is
it specific, so that you can convey it clearly in an essay? Is it interesting, so
that your audience will find it worth reading about? Is it thoughtful, so that
it serves the purpose of reflection?
At this point, consider whether or not the experience you have chosen to
write about is a good subject. If not, you can begin again by brainstorming for
a new experience to write about.

Organizing Ideas
Think about how you can order the elements of your experience. Will you
start at the beginning and describe them chronologically? Or will you start at
a later point in time and use a flashback to the beginning of the experience?
Where will you include your observations and reflections about the experi¬
ence: at the end, or at various places throughout?
As you are organizing your ideas and drafting, planning, and revising,
you need to decide whether your paper will have a visible or an invisible
structure. With a visible structure, the thesis is stated clearly, most paragraphs
contain topic sentences, transitional expressions explicitly point out connec¬
tions among ideas, and the introductory and concluding sections do their
jobs of beginning and ending the piece. Visible structure is sometimes called
 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

the "no-fail" method of organization because it usually works and because

anybody can learn to use it. Much academic and business writing relies on
visible structure.
Invisible structure is, of course, more subtle and demands artistic crafting
from the writer. Professional writers often create beautiful pieces with invis¬
ible structure. You may want to try it in some of your papers, but first you
need to master the visible structure mode so that your expository writing will
fulfill its purpose.

Drafting
As you translate your ideas, notes, and early versions into coherent writing,
you need to decide how you can draft in ways that will help you revise your
work effectively. Because the essay you are about to write has three distinct
components—your belief, your experience, and their connections—you may
want to draft each component separately and then think about how to con¬
nect them. In addition, you should recall the concepts presented in Chapter
1, especially the use of questions as a productive way to begin many forms of
writing.

Revising
Once you have completed a draft that you think is close to a final version, you
should put it aside for a day or two. If you don't have time to do that, then at
least take a break before trying to revise. When you are ready to "re-see" your
writing, read it through slowly, preferably aloud.
Consider it in terms of the following questions. (You may also use them
when you review and comment on your classmates' drafts.)

■ Are the incidents, people, and places involved in the experience related
with enough detail to make the experience clear for readers and hold
their attention? Where might further specific information or detail be
offered?

■ Is the effect the experience had on your belief made clear? Does the es¬
say seem focused? If not, where is the focus lost or vague?
■ How thoughtful are the reflection on the experience and the process of
thinking it through? Is the value of the experience fully expressed?
■ Are the opening and the conclusion effective? If not, what might make
a better opening to get readers interested? How might the conclusion
leave readers with a better understanding?
■ Do there seem to be any problems with the use of language or sentence
structure, or connections between ideas? Are any parts of the essay dif¬
ficult to read? How might words and sentences be revised?
 Student Writing 51

Proofreading
After you prepare a final draft, check for standard grammar and punctuation.
Proofread carefully for omitted words and punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread again for
the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.

STUDENT WRITING
A Changed Belief
by Agnes Kiragu

I must admit that I have never before paused to think of any belief I
have had. Like many people, I just chose to believe or not believe
without much of a reason. Now as I stop to think, I see that we have
some beliefs that we do not even know we have. I now realize that in
my mind I used to hold a belief that life could be a straight and easy,
no-struggle routine. People went to school; after school they got em¬
ployed and then married and they were satisfied. I often wondered
why some people worked so hard when they could do this without
much effort.
When I was younger most of my needs were catered for by my
parents. I went to school and church and that was life for me. I could
do the same for my children—I thought—without the pains of working
towards a university education. When I was in school, I knew that
school was important but I did not see why my parents and my elder
brothers and sisters insisted so much on my struggling to get into a
university. To me employment was what was important—regardless of
what you did.
So after high school I went to a two year secretarial college where
I graduated as a bi-lingual secretary (Swahili and English). It was when
I was working for the International Committee of the Red Cross that I
realized that just working was not enough; I needed more to be satis¬
fied. At the Red Cross I worked on the Great Lakes Region crisis, which
covered Rwanda and its neighboring countries. Though I was happy to
see the victims of conflict getting the help they so much needed, I
knew that I wanted to do more. I wanted to be of greater help to so¬
ciety and at the same time get more satisfaction from what I was do¬
ing.
In the real world, I realized, the more qualified, the more chances
of rising into the satisfaction I so much desired. One had to work for
qualifications. I stopped thinking that life could be effortless and de¬
cided to go to a university. In my country it is difficult to get into a
university. I began to save up from my salary so that I could be able to
52 Chapter 2 Thinking Critically, Writing Thoughtfully

study in the United States. I knew I could not save enough from my
salary so I discussed it with my family. My parents demonstrated to
me that the struggle in life does not end by offering to help me out.
Now I know that I have to work hard for the future because there
will be many goals to work for. Now I see life as a stairway without an
end. Each time I take a step upward I am relieved, but I realize there
are many more steps to be taken. This stairway represents life’s strug¬
gles. I now believe that life can’t be straight and easy if I am to
achieve.

STUDENT WRITING
Money Can’t Do It
by Michael Persch

Probably only a couple of events in a person’s life cause them to com¬

pletely change their views on a matter. So far, the biggest one for me
was when my father and mother lost their business. Several months
later, I realized something: that money doesn’t bring true happiness
but that your family, if given the chance, can and will. This thought
was like a light bulb that clicked on in my head. Two experiences
caused it to click on, and I am sure glad it did. That light bulb helped
me become a more real person.
When I was growing up, and all during high school, I was able to
get almost anything that I wanted. For example, at Christmas, everyone
in my family always received exactly what they asked for, plus a lot of
other stuff. On my birthday and Valentine’s day my parents usually
sent flowers and balloons to me. Finally, whenever I needed money,
all I had to do was ask my mom and dad, and they would give it to'
me. I used to take money for granted and never really thought about it
not being there until it wasn’t.
Our home was in the area to live in. During high school I never had
to take the bus because I had my own car to drive after I turned six¬
teen. My friends and I were by far the coolest guys and girls in the
school. I was able to live life to the fullest, or at least I thought I was,
because I had these important things.
All of this was because my father owned a large variety store in
town, and both it and my father were very successful. He was presi¬
dent of the Chamber of Commerce. The biggest reason that the store
was so successful is that there was no competition. That is, until Wal-
Mart came to town.
Just toward the end of the summer after graduation, my father re¬
signed from the Chamber of Commerce. Then, he called a family
meeting and told us that he was going to shut down the store be¬
cause the new Wal-Mart had put us out of business.
 Student Writing 53

I was grateful that this happened after I graduated from high

school because my whole life changed and seemed to be falling
apart. I had to sell my car; I felt that I had lost most of my friends, my
money, and my self-respect and esteem. To top it off, now I had to
get rides to and from work and college.
I couldn't stand it anymore, so I quit my job, dropped out of col¬
lege and went to work far away as a server at the Grand Canyon North
Rim where I didn't know anybody and nobody knew me! It wasn’t too
long before I had become particularly good buddies with a couple of
guys I worked with, and the three of us decided that it would be cool
to move to Seattle. So we quit, packed up our stuff, and moved there.
But in Seattle I hit rock bottom. Now there were new stresses, sim¬
ple things like paying rent and bills. I began looking for an escape and
found it in tobacco, alcohol, and drugs.
However, it was also in Seattle that I did a lot of growing up. Al¬
though using drugs and alcohol was a bad part of my life, not all of
the effects were negative. I found myself talking with people from all
walks of life. These were people who before I would never have been
caught dead associating with. Now, not only was I talking with them,
but I was learning from them. I began to have an open mind and to
see that other people were both worse off and better off than I was.
Then a life-changing event happened. I got sick, really sick. I
caught Hepatitis A from something, which put me in the hospital. I
just knew that I was going to die.
Consequently, I realized how much I needed and missed my fam¬
ily, and it didn't matter how much I had previously thought that they
had failed me. I called my mother and she told me that they would be
there as soon as possible. When they arrived the next day, I was very
happy to see them! When I could leave the hospital, we stayed to¬
gether in a hotel for a few more days until I was well enough to fly
home. Then I realized just how much I was loved.
Now things are going well for my family. Both of my parents went
back to school. My mom is the head of the nursing department at
Dixie Medical Center, and my father has become a toxic waste man¬
ager for the EPA. They are again able to help me financially with
school, but I no longer take their help for granted because I now be¬
lieve that my parents' love is much more valuable than their money.
 CHAPTER 3

Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

Critical Thinking Focus: The qualities of a creative thinker

Writing Focus: Generating original ideas
Reading Theme: The creative thinking process
Writing Project: Imagining your life lived more creatively

Writing Creatively
Creative writing is often thought of as imaginative fiction, poetry, or drama,
for which the author invents characters and situations. So the question natu¬
rally arises, what part does creativity have in expository writing in which facts,
ideas, and concepts are explored, developed, and argued? The answer: a very
large part.
\ou can use your creative thinking in selecting and narrowing your topic
(if you aie allowed to pick you own topic), in the way you generate and re¬
search ideas, in the way you organize your ideas, and in the way you focus
on y our ideas with your thesis. You can also use creative thinking to help
yourself develop your ideas with carefully chosen specific details and exam¬
ples. You can use creative thinking to develop analogies and metaphors to
help your readers grasp your ideas. Finally, you can use creative thinking to
write imaginative, inviting introductions that will make your readers anx¬
ious to read further, and you can use it to write carefully crafted conclusions
that tie in elegantly with your introductions. Of course, your critical thinking
abilities too are involved in all these steps, helping you to decide which of
your creative ideas to include and which to discard.
Does all this sound like a large amount of work? Well, you're right. It is.

54
 Writing Creatively 55

Yet there are good reasons for developing your creativity in writing. Just as
The unexamined life is not worth living," it may be said that "The uncre-
ative piece of writing is not worth reading." If all you do in your expository
writing is restate other people's ideas in a dry, formulaic way, you risk bor-
ing yourself with your writing—and boring your audience as well.
The challenge to be creative in your writing is a difficult one, and the pos¬
sibilities for creativity are vast. Focusing on the following four areas for
creativity in expository writing will help you further develop the creative
writing abilities you may already have.

■ Being creative in topic selection

■ Being creative in generating ideas, researching, and drafting
■ Being creative in using specific details and examples
■ Being creative in writing introductions and conclusions

Being Creative in Topic Selection

Some topics are personal and ask you to draw on your own life experiences,
others are impersonal and clearly require research, while still others are a
blend of the personal and impersonal. Furthermore, some topics are quite
precise; for example, "Write about your father's influence on your religious
development" or "Write about the causes of the Crimean War." Given such a
precise topic, that is exactly what you must write about. Often, though, as¬
signed topics are general enough that they need to be narrowed, to be made
more precise. This allows for some creativity on your part: for instance,
"Write about how some family member influenced you in an important
way," or "Write about some aspect of the Crimean War," or even "Write a pa¬
per on some topic related to this course." Given this type of assignment, you
may want to allow the creative process to help you in shaping it, a process we
will explore later in this chapter in the section Understanding the Creative
Process on pages 65-68.
Begin your search for a topic by picking a tentative topic, one that inter¬
ests you and that you would like to think and learn more about. A good strat¬
egy is to state a topic as a question. For example, "What, if any, new military
strategies were introduced during the Crimean War?" If it is a topic requiring
research, read as much as you can about the general topic area, being on the
lookout for ways to modify your tentative topic question or even for a new
question altogether. If you are working with a personal topic, begin to make
notes that will help you answer your question. Either way, try to gauge
whether you have enough information to answer your question, or whether
you have too little or too much. You can make your topic question broader or
narrow it as you proceed.
Expect false starts! The fact that your original question needs to be
56 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

modified or even discarded does not mean that you are doing something
wrong. Becoming aware of the need to make these changes is a normal de¬
velopment that occurs with almost all writers, so don't become discouraged
when it occurs with you. Instead, congratulate yourself for being willing to
put to work the time and effort needed for the creative process, as you shape
your topic.

Being Creative in Generating Ideas, Researching, and Drafting

Books about writing sometimes speak as though generating ideas, research¬
ing, and drafting are three entirely separate stages, and the writer finishes
with one stage before beginning the next. This may even be true in some
cases, but often writers find themselves getting new ideas while researching,
or beginning to draft only to realize the need for more research or brain¬
storming. Furthermore, writers find that the order of these stages, as well as
the time needed to complete them successfully, may vary from one writiiw
project to another.
Since there is often this back-and-forth movement between stages, there
are many opportunities for creative thinking. Be sure to review pages 13-17 in
Chapter 1 for suggestions on generating and organizing ideas; then experiment
with the following strategies to see which of them help you with your writing.

■ When brainstorming, don't hesitate to write down every idea, no mat¬

ter how unusable it may seem at the time.
■ When brainstorming, write each idea on a separate post-it note. (This
makes it easy to rearrange them into groups later when you need to or¬
ganize them.)
■ Carry a little notebook so that you can jot down ideas whenever they
come.
■ Phone your own voice mail and leave yourself a message if an idea
strikes while away from home.
■ Talk into a tape recorder and listen later to what you said.
■ Talk to other people about your topic. Knowledgeable people will add
to your information; people unfamiliar with the topic will ask useful
questions.
■ Ask a librarian for research suggestions.
■ Hold on to conflicting information or opinions. They are the heart of
academic discussion.
■ Look in the Yellow Pages for businesses or organizations that can pro¬
vide information.
■ Identify and interview experts on your topic. (Be sure to acknowledge
them as sources.)

■ Scan the TV schedule, including cable and PBS channels, for related
programs.
 Writing Creatively 57

■ Surf the Internet for sources of information.

■ When drafting, don't necessarily begin with the introduction. Instead,
begin with whatever section is easiest to write.
■ Be willing to modify your thesis as you go along, so that you don't lock
yourself into a position too early.
■ Avoid premature organization; draft sections on separate pages or as
separate computer files. Then try arranging them in different orders.
■ If you are interrupted while drafting, read what you have already writ¬
ten, to get back into the flow.

In other words, immerse yourself in your writing; live in it and with it long
enough for the creative process to work.

Being Creative in Using Specific Details and Examples

Because solid evidence for claims is one of the most important requirements
of college writing and one of the essentials in critical thinking, a good thinker
will habitually give specific examples for any general statement to show its
validity and to make it understandable. However, writers often need to think
creatively in order to discover examples and to present them effectively.
A common item of advice to writers is "Don't tell your readers; show
them." Good writers show by means of specific details and relevant exam¬
ples, often searching through levels of specificity to find what is needed. For
example:
Telling: Michael Jordan is a great basketball player.
Showing: During the 1995-1996 season, Michael Jordan led the
NBA with a scoring average of 30.4 points per game.
That same season, he ranked second on the Bulls for re¬
bounding and assists.
He was chosen for the NBA All-Star Team in his first nine
seasons.
He has won four league MVP awards and two Olympic
gold medals.
Often one example will lead to another.
Telling: My brother is an easygoing person.
Showing: My brother lets me borrow his car whenever I want.
When I had an accident while driving his car, all he said
was, "That's why we have insurance."
In order to come up with abundant examples, you may need to do research
and you may need to think creatively, following suggestions given in the
section on being creative in generating ideas, researching, and drafting (pp.
56-57).
Writers can also be creative in generating language with which to express
the details that most writing needs. While writing must always be as accurate
 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

as possible, sometimes metaphorical images can be applied; in other

instances, clear descriptors are in order. Think of the differences created by
describing someone's hair as dark, or black, or like wet pavement, or like polished
ebony, or like a Labrador retriever's.

Being Creative with Introductions and Conclusions

Another time to think creatively while working on a piece of writing is when
you are ready to deal with the beginning and the ending. What is most im¬
portant to realize is that you need not, and probably should not, try to write
these sections in order. Many successful writers work on the beginning or in¬
troduction last—or they may draft an introduction at an early stage, but plan
to revise it as they complete the paper.
Explore as many different types of introductions and conclusions as you
can, if you are writing something for which there can be choices. (Some kinds
of 'writing have expected formats that include types of beginnings and end¬
ings: lab reports are an example.)
Following are some types of beginnings.
■ Background information or context
■ A relevant anecdote
■ A quotation or proverb that relates to the topic
■ A striking statement (to be contradicted or supported)
■ The problem to be addressed in the paper
■ Questions connected to the content of the paper
■ The who, what, where, when, and why of the paper's focus
■ The claim, thesis, or main point
■ Combinations of types listed above

You can use creative thinking to come up with more; then use critical
thinking and help from your editors, including peers, to decide which begin¬
ning your paper should have.
The same approach works for drafting conclusions. Explore the many
possibilities for endings, which include these six.

■ A summary of the paper's information

■ A recommendation or exhortation or call for action
■ An apt quotation or proverb
■ A telling anecdote
■ The thesis or main point stated at the end of an inductively arranged
paper

■ A suggestion of the need for more discussion of the issue

A conclusion must provide a sense of closure to the piece; readers should rec¬
ognize it as an ending (you should not have to write "The End"!).
 Thinking Creatively 59

Neither introductions nor conclusions should be apologetic; neither

should have a tone different from that of the body of the paper. Both should
be carefully revised after being creatively prepared.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 3.1

Creative Introductions and Conclusions
Find two or three articles in a publication that you enjoy. Look at the introduc¬
tions and conclusions. Are they amons the types just listed? If not, how would
you describe them? For one of the articles, try to write a different introduction
or conclusion and evaluate its effectiveness.

Thinking Creatively
Thinking critically and thinking creatively are two essential and tightly in¬
terwoven dimensions of the thinking process. Both work together as partners
to produce productive, effective thinking, leading to informed decisions and
eventually, successful lives. Thinking critically and thinking creatively also
work as partners in the writing process, enabling us to find and evaluate new
approaches and insights, to discover ways to interest readers in our ideas,
and to express our ideas in fresh, striking language. Thinking Creatively
involves discovering and developing ideas that are unusual and worthy of
further elaboration. Thinking Critically involves carefully examining our
thinking and the thinking of others, in order to clarify and improve our un¬
derstanding.
For example, imagine that you are confronted with a problem to solve.
Thinking critically enables you to identify and accept the problem. When you
generate alternatives for solving the problem, you are using creative thinking
abilities. When you evaluate the various alternatives and select one or more
to pursue, you are thinking critically. Developing ideas for implementing al¬
ternatives involves thinking creatively, while constructing a practical plan of
action and evaluating the results depends on thinking critically.
Although the first two chapters of this book have emphasized your crit¬
ical thinking abilities, creative thinking has been involved in every part of our
explorations of the mind. In this chapter, we are shifting the emphasis to cre¬
ative thinking, working to gain insight into this powerful and mysterious di¬
mension of the thinking process, a dimension that can add richness and joy
to our lives and to our writing.
 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 3.2

Recalling a Creative Experience
1. Write about two different times when you consciously tried to be creative.
Answer the followins questions for each experience.
■ What was the situation that required your creativity?
■ How did you so about finding a creative idea or solution?
■ What was that creative idea or solution?
■ Was it successful?
■ How do you feel rememberins this experience?
2. Select one of your experiences to share with your class or small sroup.
3. Listen carefully to all the experiences that are shared.
4. On the basis of your own writing and the experiences of others which you've
heard, try to make some inferences or general statements about creativity.

Living Creatively
Human beings have a nearly limitless capacity to be creative, our imagina¬
tions giving us the power to conceive of new possibilities and put these in¬
novative ideas into action. Using creative resources in this way enriches our
lives and brings a special meaning to our activities. While we might not go to
the extreme of saying that "The uncreative life is not worth living/' it is surely
preferable to live a life enriched by the qualities of creativity.
Many people think that being creative is beyond them, that creativity is
a mysterious gift bestowed on only a chosen few. One reason for this is that
people often confuse being "creative" with being "artistic"—skilled at art,
music, poetry, imaginative writing, drama, or dance. Although artistic people
are certainly creative, there are an infinite number of ways to be creative that
are not artistic. Being creative is a state of mind and a way of life. As the writer
Eric Gill expresses it: "The artist is not a different kind of person, but each one of
us is a different kind of artist."
Are you creative? Yes! Think of all the activities that you enjoy: cooking,
creating a wardrobe, raising children, playing sports, cutting or braiding hair,
dancing, playing music. Whenever you are investing your own personal
ideas, putting on your own personal stamp, you are being creative. For ex¬
ample, imagine that you are cooking your favorite dish. To the extent that
you are expressing your unique ideas developed through inspiration and ex¬
perimentation, you are being creative. If, of course, you are simply following
someone else's recipe without significant modification, your dish may be
tasty—but it is not creative. Similarly, if your moves on the dance floor or the
basketball court express your distinctive personality, you are being creative,
as you are when you stimulate the original thinking of your children or make
your friends laugh with your own brand of humor.
 Thinking Creatively 61

You are an artist, creating your life portrait, and your paints and brush
strokes are the choices that you make each day of your life.

Living life creatively means bringing your perspective and creative tal¬
ents to all of the dimensions of your life. Below are five passages written by
students about creative areas in their lives. After reading the passages, com¬
plete Thinkings ^Writing Activity 3.3, which gives you the opportunity to
describe a creative area from your own life.
62 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

STUDENT WRITING
Cooking
One of the most creative aspects of my life is my diet. I have been a
vegetarian for the past five years, while the rest of my family has con¬
tinued to eat meat. I had to overcome many obstacles to make this
lifestyle work for me, including family dissension. The solution was
simple: I had to learn how to cook creatively. I have come to realize
that my diet is an on-going learning process. The more I learn about
and experiment with different foods, the healthier and happier I be¬
come. I feel like an explorer setting out on my own to discover new
things about food and nutrition. I slowly evolved from a person who
could cook food only if it came from a can, into someone who could
make bread from scratch and grow yogurt cultures. I find learning new
things about nutrition and cooking healthful foods very relaxing and
rewarding. I like being alone in my house baking bread; there is some¬
thing very comforting about the aroma. Most of all I like to experiment
with different ways to prepare foods, because the ideas are my own.
Even when an effort is less than successful, I find pleasure in the
knowledge that I gained from the experience. I discovered recently,
for example, that eggplant is terrible in soup! Making mistakes seems
to be a natural way to increase creativity, and I now firmly believe that
people who say that they do not like vegetables simply have not been
properly introduced to them!

Writing
The most creative area in my life is my writing. I love the thrill of in¬
venting a new person or location, and, although I have a host of char-
acters and story lines, there is one character named Pynthe that I am
particularly proud of. Pynthe is not only my favorite character, she is
also my most creative. When I invented Pynthe, I did more than just
arrange a few words on paper. I gave her dimension. I took a day-
dream, a glimmer of an idea, and turned it into an individual. From my
imagination, I created a fantasy world and religion for my character. I
also gave her a past with its share of heartaches and happiness, and a
future full of hopes and dreams. There is nothing more exhilarating
than creating with language. In the extreme, I can destroy my charac-
ter with two words, or bring her to the other side of the spectrum and
let her lead a long and satisfying life. I can best describe this feeling
of creation as a euphoric rush. I love letting my imagination roam and I
easily lose myself in writing, absorbed in the process.

Raising Children
As any parent knows, children have an abundance of energy to spend
and toys or television do not always meet their needs. In response I
create activities to stimulate their creativity and preserve my sanity.' For
 Thinking Creatively 63

example, I involve them in the process of cooking, giving them the

skin from peeled vegetables and a pot so they make their own "soup."
Using catalogs, we cut out pictures of furniture, rugs, and curtains,
and they paste them onto cartons to create their own interior decor:
vibrant living rooms, plush bedrooms, colorful family rooms. I make
beautiful boats from aluminum paper, and my children spend hours in
the bathtub playing with them. We "go bowling" with empty soda
cans and a ball, and they star in "track meets" by running an obstacle
course we set up. When it comes to raising children, creativity is a
way of survival!

Carpentry
After quitting the government agency I was working at because of too
much bureaucracy, I was hired as a carpenter at a construction site, al¬
though I had little knowledge of this profession. I learned to handle a
hammer and other tools by watching co-workers, and within a matter
of weeks I was skilled enough to organize my own group of workers
for projects. Most of my fellow workers used the old-fashioned
method of construction carpentry, building panels with inefficient and
poorly made bracings. I redesigned the panels in order to save con¬
struction time and materials. My supervisor and site engineer were
thrilled with my creative ideas, and I was assigned progressively more
challenging projects, including the construction of an office building
that was completed in record time.

Hair Braiding
My area of creativity is hair braiding, an activity that requires skill, tal¬
ent, and patience that is difficult for most people to accomplish.
Braiding hair in styles that are being worn today consists of braiding
small to tiny braids, and it may include adding artificial hair to make
the hair look fuller. It takes anywhere from ten to sixteen hours de¬
pending on the type of style that is desired: the smaller the braids,
the longer it takes. In order to braid, I had to learn how to determine
the right hair and color for people that wanted extensions, pick
out the right style that would fit perfectly on my customers' faces,
learn to cut hair in an asymmetric fashion, put curls in the braids, and
know the sequence of activities. Doing hair is a rewarding experience
for me because when I am through with my work, my customers think
the result is gorgeous!
64 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

THINKING*-* WRITING ACTIVITY 3.3

A Creative Idea
1. Describe a creative area of your life in which you are able to express your
personality and talents. Be specific and sive examples.
2. Analyze your creative area by answering the following questions:

■ Why do you feel that this activity is creative? Give examples.

■ How would you describe the experience of being engaged in this activ¬
ity? Where do your creative ideas come from? How do they develop?
■ What strategies do you use to increase your creativity? What obstacles
block your creative efforts? How do you try to overcome these blocks?

Becoming More Creative

Although we each have nearly limitless potential to live creatively, most
people use only a small percentage of their creative gifts. In fact, there is re¬
search to suggest that people typically achieve their highest creative point as
young children, after which there is a long, steady decline into uncreativity.
Why? Well, to begin with, young children are immersed in the excitement of
exploration and discovery. They are eager to try out new things, act on their
impulses, and make unusual connections between disparate ideas. They are
not afraid to take risks in trying out untested solutions; they do not feel com¬
pelled to identify the socially acceptable "correct answer." Children are will¬
ing to play with ideas, creating improbable scenarios and imaginative ways
of thinking, without fear of being ridiculed.
All of this tends to change as we get older. The weight of "reality" begins
to smother our imagination, and we increasingly focus our attention on the
nuts and bolts of living, rather than playing with possibilities. The social
pressure to conform to group expectations increases dramatically. Whether
the group is our friends, schoolmates, or fellow employees, there are clearly
defined "rules" for dressing, behaving, speaking, and thinking. When we
deviate from these rules, we risk social disapproval, rejection, or ridicule.
Most groups have little tolerance for individuals who want to think in¬
dependently and creatively. As we become older, we also become more
reluctant to pursue untested course of action, because we become increas¬
ingly afraid of failure. Pursuing creativity inevitably involves failure, because
we are trying to break out of established ruts and go beyond traditional meth¬
ods. For example, going beyond the safety of a proven recipe to create an in¬
novative dish may involve some disasters, yet is the only way to create
something genuinely unique. The history of creative discoveries is littered
with failures, a fact we tend to forget when we are debating whether to risk
an untested idea.
 Understanding the Creative Process 65

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 3.4

Inhibitions to Creativity
Reflect on your own creative development and describe some of the fears and
pressures that inhibit your own creativity. For example, have you ever been pe¬
nalized for trying a new idea that didn’t work out? Have you ever suffered the
wrath of the group for daring to be different and violate the group’s unspoken
rules? Do you feel that your life is so filled with responsibilities and the de¬
mands of reality that you don’t have time to be creative?

Understanding the Creative Process

Although the forces that discourage us from being creative are powerful,
they can nevertheless be overcome with four productive strategies:

■ Understand and trust the creative process.

■ Eliminate the "Voice of Judgment."
■ Make creativity a priority.
■ Establish a creative environment.

Understand and Trust the Creative Process

Discovering your creative talents requires that you understand how the cre¬
ative process operates, then have confidence in the results it produces. There
are no fixed procedures or formulas for generating creative ideas because cre¬
ative ideas by definition go beyond established ways of thinking to the un¬
known and the innovative. As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus once
said, "You must expect the unexpected, because it cannot be found by search or
trail."
Although there is no fixed path to creative ideas, there are activities we
can pursue that make the birth of creative ideas possible. In this respect, gen¬
erating creative ideas is similar to gardening. We need to prepare the soil;
plant the seeds; ensure proper watering, light, and food; and then be patient
until the ideas begin to sprout. Here are some steps for cultivating your cre¬
ative garden:
Absorb yourself in the task: Creative ideas don't occur in a vacuum.
They emerge after a great deal of work, study, and practice. For example, if
you want to come up with creative ideas in the kitchen, you need to become
knowledgeable about the art of cooking. The more knowledgeable you are,
the better prepared you are to create valuable and innovative dishes. Simi¬
larly, if you are trying to develop a creative perspective for a research paper
in college, you need to immerse yourself in the subject, developing an
66 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

in-depth understanding of the central concepts and issues. Absorbing your¬

self in the task "prepares the soil" for your creative ideas.
Allow time for ideas to incubate: After absorbing yourself in the task or
problem, the next stage in the creative process is to stop working on it. When
your conscious mind has stopped actively working on the task, the uncon¬
scious dimension of your mind continues working—processing, organizing,
and ultimately generating innovative ideas and solutions. This process is
known as incubation because it mirrors the process in which baby chicks grad¬
ually evolve inside the egg until the moment comes when they break out
through the shell. In the same way, your creative mind is at work while you are
going about your business until the moment of illumination, when the incu¬
bating idea finally erupts to the surface of your conscious mind. People report
that these illuminating moments—when their mental light bulbs go on—often
occur when they are engaged in activities completely unrelated to the task.
Seize on the ideas when they emerge and follow them through: Gener¬
ating creati ve ideas is of little use unless we recognize them when they ap¬
pear and then act on them. Too often people don't pay much attention to
these ideas when they occur, or they dismiss them as too impractical. Have
confidence in your ideas, even if they seem a little strange. Many of the most
valuable inventions in our history started as improbable ideas, ridiculed by
the popular wisdom. For example, the idea of Velcro started with burrs cov¬
ering the pants of the inventor as he walked through a field, and Post-It Notes
resulted from the accidental invention of an adhesive that was weaker than
normal. In other words, thinking effectively means thinking creatively and
thinking critically. After we use our creative thinking abilities to generate in¬
novative ideas, we must employ our critical thinking abilities to evaluate and
refine those ideas and design a practical plan for implementing them.

Eliminate the “Voice of Judgment”

The biggest threat to our creativity lies within ourselves, the negative Voice
of Judgment (VOJ). This term was coined by Michael Ray and Rochelle
Myers, the authors of Creativity in Business, a book based on a Stanford Uni¬
versity course. The VOJ can undermine your confidence in every area of your
life, including your creative activities. For example, when you are drafting a
paper, the VOJ may whisper:
"This is a stupid idea and no one will like it."
Even if I could pull this idea off, it probably won't amount to much."
These statements, and countless others like them, have the ongoing effect
of making us doubt ourselves and the quality of our creative thinking. As we
lose confidence, we become more timid, reluctant to follow through on ideas
and present them to others. After a while our cumulative insecurity discour¬
ages us from even generating ideas in the first place, and we end up simply
 Eliminate the "Voice of Judgment" 67

conforming to established ways of thinking and the expectations of others.

And in so doing, we surrender an important part of ourselves, the vital and
dynamic creative core of our personality
How do we eliminate this unwelcome and destructive inner voice? There
are a number of effective strategies to use. Remember, though, that the fight,
while worth the effort, will not be easy.
Become aware of the VOJ: You have probably been listening to the neg¬
ative messages of the VOJ for so long that you may not even consciously be
aware of it. To conquer the VOJ, you first need to recognize when it speaks.
Restate the judgment in a more accurate or constructive way: Some¬
times there is an element of truth in our self-judgments, but we have blown
the reality out of proportion. For example, if you fail a test, your VOJ may
translate this as You're a failure/' If you ask someone for a date and get
turned down, your VOJ may conclude: "You're a social misfit with emotional
bad breath!" In these instances, you need to translate the reality accurately: "I
failed this test—I wonder what went wrong and how I can improve my per¬
formance in the future." "This person turned me down for a date—I guess
we're not compatible, or maybe we just don't know each other well enough."
Get tough with the VOJ: You can't be a wimp if you hope to overcome
the VOJ. Instead, you have to be strong and determined, vowing as soon as
the VOJ appears, "I'm throwing you out and not letting you back in!" This at¬
tack may feel peculiar at first, but it will soon become an automatic response
when those negative judgments appear.
Create positive voices and visualizations: The best way to destroy the
VOJ for good is to replace it with positive encouragement. As soon as you
have stomped on, say, the judgment "You're a jerk," you should replace it
with "No, I'm an intelligent, valuable person with many positive qualities
and talents." Similarly, you should make extensive use of positive visualiza¬
tion, as you "see" yourself performing well on your examinations; being en¬
tertaining and insightful with other people, and succeeding gloriously in the
sport or dramatic production in which you are involved.
Use other people for independent confirmation: The negative judg¬
ments coming from the VOJ are usually irrational, but until they are dragged
out into the light of day for examination, they can be very powerful. Sharing
our VOJ with people we trust is an effective strategy because they can pro¬
vide an objective perspective that reveals to us the irrationality and destruc¬
tiveness of these negative judgments.

Establish a Creative Environment

An important part of eliminating the negative voices in our mind is to estab¬
lish environments in which our creative resources can flourish. This means
finding or developing physical environments conducive to creative expres¬
sion as well as supportive social environments. Sometimes, working with
other people is stimulating and energizing to our creative juices; at other
68 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

times, we require a private place where we can work without distraction.

One writer says, "I have a specific location in which I do much of my writing:
sitting on a comfortable couch, with a calm, pleasing view, music on the
stereo, a cold drink, a supply of Tootsie Roll Pops. Fm ready for creativity to
strike me, although I sometimes have to wait for some time." Different envi¬
ronments work for different people: you have to find the environment(s) best
suited to your own creative process, then make a special effort to do your
work there.
The people in our lives who form our social environment play an even
more influential role in encouraging or inhibiting our creative process. When
we are surrounded by people who are positive and supportive, this increases
our confidence and encourages us to take the risk to express our creative vi¬
sion. They can stimulate our creativity by providing us with fresh ideas and
new perspectives. By engaging in brainstorming (described on page 13), they
can work with us to generate ideas and then, later, help us figure out how to
refine and implement the most valuable ones.

Make Creativity a Priority

Having diminished the voice of negative judgment in your mind, established
a creative environment, and committed yourself to trusting your creative
gifts, you are now in a position to live more creatively. How do you actually
do this? Start small. Identify some habitual patterns in your life and break out
of them. Choose new experiences whenever possible—for example, ordering
unfamiliar items from a menu or getting to know people outside your circle
of friends—and strive to develop fresh perspectives on things in your life. Re¬
sist falling back into the ruts you were in previously; remember that living
things are supposed to be continually growing, changing, and evolving, not
acting in repetitive patterns like machines.

Examining Creativity
We have defined thinking creatively as the cognitive process we use to dis¬
cover and develop ideas that are unusual and worthy of further elaboration.
But how do we get creative ideas? Where do they come from? The following
readings offer us some clues.

from Pizza Tiger

by Tom Monaghan with Robert Anderson

. . . There are some personal approaches in management that I don't

think I could have learned from a book. My method of making
 Examining Creativity 69

decisions is one of them. I don't know that it would work for anyone
else. But here, for whatever it's worth is how I do it:
I reach decisions by making lists on my yellow legal pads. Down one
side of a page, 111 write all the reasons I can think of in favor of a given
course of action. On the other side, I list every reason I can think of
against it. Thinking of arguments for and against a decision is where my
ability to dream comes in handy: I imagine the decision has been made.
I see in my mind's eye how it affects people and the way they react. If
it's a complicated issue, with many reasons for it and a lot of others
against, I will break each point down into sublists and assign them a
kind of point value so I can weigh them against each other.
Sometimes, as I learned from my experience with the proposal that
we change our name to Pizza Dispatch, it's good to consider future sit¬
uations, too. In that case, my list of the benefits of the name Pizza Dis¬
patch were outweighed by the drawbacks of giving up Domino's. But I
concentrated on the immediate situation. I didn't ask myself. Okay, five
years from now, when we have more than two thousand stores and are
in every state in the Union, what will the pros and cons be then? Had I
done so, I would have made a better decision.
I also make lists as a way of brainstorming ideas with myself on pa¬
per. This is a written version of what I love to do verbally on the occa¬
sions when I can get on the same wavelength with another person.
Doing it verbally is more fun because it's exciting to share the explo¬
ration of ideas. But the written approach is absorbing, too, and it can be
extremely fruitful.
At the outset I'm often unable to see a good idea because there's a
clutter of other things hiding it. There are roads through the clutter,
though, and I have to go down them until I find the one that will take
me up mentally above the clutter, to a point where I can see a good idea
on the horizon. The roads are propositions that I think up, write down
on my list, and follow one by one. A proposition might be stupid or ob¬
vious, but I take it anyway because I don't know where it will lead and
what it might connect with. I say to myself. Why don't we do this? Well,
I see that if we did that, it would allow us to do something else, and I
just keep adding to it. If I don't go down those roads, I never get to the
good idea, because there's a link, and I find the link by following some¬
thing that may not work or is impossible.
I sometimes compare my brainstorming on paper to the drilling of oil
wells. The only way to strike oil is to drill a lot of wells. My lists are
wells, and every once in a while I hit a gusher. I'm working away, mak¬
ing lists, and all of a sudden something pops right out. I'll say. Hey, look
at that!
Lots of times I'll be writing lists of things I want to do this year or
next year, which I do just for the fun of it, and I'll find one item I want
to think about some more. So I'll take a separate page, or sometimes
70 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

even another pad, and start making lists of ideas about that particular
thing. I expand on it, and who knows, maybe I'll find other things in
that list that I want to expand on. It's like fishing. I never know what
kind of idea I might catch.

from Perfecting Our Strategy

by Pauli Murray

My last semester in law school was dizzying, because everything

seemed to happen at once. In addition to carrying a heavy course load,
as graduation approached I found myself battling simultaneously on
three fronts which required constant shifting of intellectual and emo¬
tional gears. I was at once a minority voice within the law school in an
ongoing debate over civil rights legal strategy, a student leader in the re¬
newed direct action assault upon Washington's segregated restaurants,
and a solitary challenger of Harvard Law School's traditional exclusion
of women students.
In the early 1940s Howard Law School stood virtually alone in its
strong emphasis upon civil rights. Our senior Civil Rights Seminar was
easily the most popular course in the curriculum. Presided over by my
early supporter, jovial Leon A. Ransom, whose brilliant Supreme Court
victories included reversal of the death sentence of one of the famous
Scottsboro defendants, the seminar was a forum in which eager stu¬
dents tested their abilities against experienced civil rights lawyers and
vied with one another to present the most persuasive arguments for the
overthrow of Jim Crow.
Bound together by an overriding passion, we were a tiny band of
fighters trying to establish defensible positions from which to launch a
massive attack upon the entire system of legally enforced segregation,
reinforced as it was by decades of court decisions. We sifted through
hundreds of judicial opinions in search of fragments of language to bol¬
ster our moral convictions, and although the same ground had been
covered many times over, any fresh idea that emerged in the heat of our
forensic struggles would be refined through research and developed
into a seminar paper. These student efforts added to the law school's
reservoir of constitutional theory. In the absence of a law review, our pa¬
pers remained unpublished, but some of our ideas eventually found
their way into briefs presented to the Supreme Court, and in later years
we could look back with pride on our performance as anonymous foot
soldiers in the early waves of the struggle leading to the great civil
rights legal victories of the forties, fifties, and sixties.
Two great roadblocks in our advance toward equality under the law
were the Supreme Court's landmark decisions in the Civil Rights Cases
of 1883 and Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. In the 1883 decision, the Court
 Examining Creativity 71

struck down sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had prohib¬
ited denial of equal accommodations in hotels, in theaters, and on rail¬
roads and other public conveyances, thus leaving Negroes unprotected
against discrimination by private establishments. This decision set the
stage for the more far-reaching doctrine of "separate but equal" treat¬
ment laid down in the later Plessy case, which held that states had the
power to enforce separation by race so long as the separate facilities
were equal. These two cases, generally presumed to be settled law,
locked us into a permanent and visibly inferior status. We needed no so¬
ciological data to tell us the decisions were morally wrong and judi¬
cially biased—our personal experience contradicted their validity—but
our problem was how to overcome an almost impregnable wall of judi¬
cial precedent.
One day during class discussion, in a flash of poetic insight, I ad¬
vanced a radical approach that few legal scholars considered viable in
1944—namely, that the time had come to make a frontal assault on the
constitutionality of segregation per se instead of continuing to acqui¬
esce in the Plessy doctrine while nibbling away at its underpinnings on
a case-by-case basis and having to show in each case that the facility in
question was in fact unequal. In essence I was challenging the traditional
NAACP tactic of concentrating on the equal side of the Plessy equation.
One would have thought I had proposed that we attempt to tear
down the Washington Monument or the Statue of Liberty. First aston¬
ishment, then hoots of derisive laughter, greeted what seemed to me to
be an obvious solution. My approach was considered too visionary, one
likely to precipitate an unfavorable decision of the Supreme Court,
thus strengthening rather than destroying the force of the Plessy
case. Spottswood Robinson, the young Bills and Notes professor, who
had graduated several years earlier with the highest academic record
in the history of the law school and whose encyclopedic knowledge of
case law inspired awe among students, not only pooh-poohed my
idea but good-naturedly accepted my wager of ten dollars that Plessy
would be overruled within twenty-five years. None of us dreamed
that the Supreme Court would deliver a death blow to the Plessy doc¬
trine, in Brown v. Board of Education, not twenty-five but only ten years
later.
Opposition to an idea I cared deeply about always aroused my latent
mule-headedness, and I chose for my seminar paper the ambitious
topic "Should the Civil Rights Cases and Plessy v. Ferguson Be Over¬
ruled?" An inexperienced third-year law student was hardly equipped
to deal adequately with an enormously complex constitutional problem
which would later tax the best efforts of scores of legal scholars, but
Andy Ransom, delighting in what he must have thought of as my naive
audacity, egged me on and even extended the deadline for my paper to
the end of the summer following graduation.
Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

from Unended Quest

by Karl Popper

... What characterizes creative thinking, apart from the intensity of the
interest in the problem, seems to me often the ability to break through
the limits of the range—or to vary the range—from which a less creative
thinker selects his trials. This ability, which clearly is a critical ability,
may be described as critical imagination. It is often the result of culture
clash, that is, a clash between ideas, or frameworks of ideas. Such a
clash may help us to break through the ordinary bounds of our imagi¬
nation.
Remarks like this, however, would hardly satisfy those who seek for
a psychological theory of creative thinking, and especially of scientific
discovery. For what they are after is a theory of successful thinking.
I think that the demand for a theory of successful thinking cannot be
satisfied, and that it is not the same as the demand for a theory of cre¬
ative thinking. Success depends on many things—for example on luck.
It may depend on meeting with a promising problem. It d epends on not
being anticipated. It depends on such things as a fortunate division of
one's time between trying to keep up-to-date and concentrating on
working out one's own ideas.
But it seems to me that what is essential to "creative" or "inventive"
thinking is a combination of intense interest in some problem (and thus
a readiness to try again and again) with highly critical thinking, with a
readiness to attack even those presuppositions which for less critical
thought determine the limits of the range from which trials (conjec¬
tures) are selected; with an imaginative freedom that allows us to see so
far unsuspected sources of error: possible prejudices in need of critical
examination.
(It is my opinion that most investigations into the psychology of cre¬
ative thoughts are pretty barren—or else more logical than psychologi¬
cal. For critical thought, or error elimination, can be better characterized
in logical terms than in psychological terms.)
A "trial" or a newly formed "dogma" or a new "expectation" is
largely the result of inborn needs that give rise to specific problems. But it
is also the result of the inborn need to form expectations (in certain spe¬
cific fields, which in their turn are related to some other needs); and it
may also be partly the result of disappointed earlier expectations. I do
not of course deny that there may also be an element of personal inge¬
nuity present in the formation of trials or dogmas, but I think that inge¬
nuity and imagination play their main part in the critical process of error
elimination. Most of the great theories which are among the supreme
achievements of the human mind are the offspring of earlier dogmas,
plus criticism.
 Examining Creativity 73

What became clear to me first, in connection with dogma-formation,

was that children especially small children—urgently need discover¬
able regularities around them; there was an inborn need not only for
food and for being loved but also for discoverable structural invariants
of the environment (“things" are such discoverable invariants), for a
settled routine, for settled expectations. This infantile dogmatism has
been observed by Jane Austen: "Henry and John were still asking every
day for the story of Harriet and the gipsies, and still tenaciously setting
[Emma]... right if she varied in the slightest particular from the origi¬
nal recital. There was, especially in older children, enjoyment in varia¬
tion, but mainly within a limited range or framework of expectations.
Games, for example, were of this kind; and the rules (the invariants) of
the game were often almost impossible to learn by mere observation.
My main point was that the dogmatic way of thinking was due to an
inborn need for regularities, and to inborn mechanisms of discovery;
mechanisms which make us search for regularities. And one of my the¬
ses was that if we speak glibly of "heredity and environment" we axe li¬
able to underrate the overwhelming role of heredity—which, among
other things, largely determines what aspects of its objective environ¬
ment (the ecological niche) do or do not belong to an animal's subjec¬
tive, or biologically significant, environment.
I distinguished three main types of learning process, of which the
first was the fundamental one:
(1) Learning in the sense of discovery: (dogmatic) formation of the¬
ories or expectations, or regular behaviour, checked by (critical) error
elimination.
(2) Learning by imitation. This can be interpreted as a special case
of (1).
(3) Learning by "repetition" or "practising," as in learning to play an
instrument or to drive a car. Here my thesis is that (a) there is no gen¬
uine "repetition" but rather (b) change through error elimination (fol¬
lowing theory formation) and (c) a process which helps to make certain
actions or reactions automatic, thereby allowing them to sink to a
merely physiological level, and to be performed without attention.
The significance of inborn dispositions or needs for discovering reg¬
ularities and rules may be seen in the child's learning to speak a lan¬
guage, a process that has been much studied. It is, of course, a kind of
learning by imitation; and the most astonishing thing is that this very
early process is one of trial and critical error elimination, in which the
critical error elimination plays a very important role. The power of in¬
nate dispositions and needs in this development can best be seen in
children who, owing to their deafness, do not participate in the speech
situations of their social environment in the normal way. The most con¬
vincing cases are perhaps children who are deaf and blind like Laura
Bridgman—or Helen Keller, of whom I heard only at a later date.
74 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

Admittedly, even in these cases we find social contacts—Helen Keller's

contact with her teacher—and we also find imitation. But Helen
Keller's imitation of her teacher's spelling into her hand is far removed
from the ordinary child's imitation of sounds heard over a long period,
sounds whose communicative function can be understood, and re¬
sponded to, even by a dog.
10 The great differences between human languages show that there
must be an important environmental component in language learning.
Moreover, the child's learning of a language is almost entirely an in¬
stance of learning by imitation. Yet reflection on various biological as¬
pects of language shows that the genetic factors are much more
important. Thus I agree with the statement of Joseph Church: "While
some part of the change that occurs in infancy can be accounted for
in terms of physical maturation, we know that maturation stands in a
circular, feedback relationship to experience—the things the organ¬
ism does, feels, and has done to it. This is not to disparage the role of
maturation; it is only to insist that we cannot view it as a single
blossoming of predestined biological characteristics." Yet I differ
from Church in contending that the genetically founded maturation
process is much more complex and has much greater influence than the
releasing signals and the experiences of receiving them; though no
doubt a certain minimum of this is needed to stimulate the "blossom¬
ing." Helen Keller's grasping (not mentioned by Church) that the
spelled word "water" means the thing which she could feel with her
hand and which she knew so well had, I think, some similarity with
"imprinting"; but there are also many dissimilarities. The similarity
was the ineradicable impression made on her, and the way in which a
single experience released pent-up dispositions and needs. An obvious
dissimilarity was the tremendous range of variation which the experi¬
ence opened up for her, and which led in time to her mastery of lan¬
guage.
In the light of this I doubt the aptness of Church's comment: "The
baby does not walk because his 'walking mechanisms' have come into
flower, but because he has achieved a kind of orientation to space
whereby walking becomes a possible mode of action." It seems to me
that in Helen Keller's case there was no orientation in linguistic space
or, at any rate, extremely little, prior to her discovery that the touch of
her teacher's fingers denoted water, and her jumping to the conclusion
that certain touches may have denotational or referential significance.
What must have been there was a readiness, a disposition, a need, to in¬
terpret signals; and a need, a readiness, to learn to use these signals by
imitation, by the method of trial and error (by nonrandom trials and the
critical elimination of spelling errors).
It appears that there must be inborn dispositions of great variety and
complexity which cooperate in this field: the disposition to love, to
 Examining Creativity 75

sympathize, to emulate movements, to control and correct the emulated

movements; the disposition to use them, and to communicate with their
help; the disposition to react to language; to receive commands, re¬
quests, admonitions, warnings; the disposition to interpret descriptive
statements, and to produce descriptive statements. In Helen Keller's
case (as opposed to that of normal children) most of her information
about reality come through language. As a consequence she was unable
for a time to distinguish clearly what we might call “hearsay" from ex¬
perience, and even from her own imagination: all three came to her in
terms of the same symbolic code.
The example of language learning showed me that my schema of a
natural sequence consisting of a dogmatic phase followed by a critical
phase was too simple. In language learning there is clearly an inborn
disposition to correct (that is, to be flexible and critical, to eliminate er¬
rors) which after a time peters out. When a child, having learned to say
mice" uses "hice" for the plural of "house," then a disposition to find
regularities is at work. The child will soon correct himself, perhaps un¬
der the influence of adult criticisms. But there seems to be a phase in
language learning when the language structure becomes rigid—per¬
haps under the influence of "automatization," as explained in 3 (c)
above.
I have used language learning merely as an example from which we
can see that imitation is a special case of the method of trial and error-
elimination. It is also an example of the cooperation between phases of
dogmatic theory formation, expectation formation, or the formation of
behavioural regularities, on the one hand, and phases of criticism on the
other.
But although the theory of a dogmatic phase followed by a critical
phase is too simple, it is true that there can he no critical phase without a pre¬
ceding dogmatic phase, a place in which something—an expectation, a regular¬
ity of behaviour—is formed, so that error elimination can begin to work on it.
This view made me reject the psychological theory of learning by in¬
duction, a theory to which Hume adhered even after he had rejected in¬
duction on logical grounds. (I do not wish to repeat what I have said in
Conjectures and Refutations about Hume's views on habit.) It also led me
to see that there is no such thing as an unprejudiced observation. All ob¬
servation is an activity with an aim (to find, or to check, some regular¬
ity which is at least vaguely conjectured); an activity guided by
problems, and by the context of expectations (the "horizon of expecta¬
tions" as I later called it). There is no such thing as passive experience;
no passively impressed association of impressed ideas. Experience is
the result of active exploration by the organism, of the search for regu¬
larities or invariants. There is no such thing as a perception except in the
context of interests and expectations, and hence of regularities or
"laws."
76 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

All this led me to the view that conjecture or hypothesis must have
come before observation or perception: we have inborn expectations;
we must have latent inborn knowledge, in the form of latent expecta¬
tions, to be activated by stimuli to which we react as a rule while en¬
gaged in active exploration. All learning is a modification (it may be a
refutation) of some prior knowledge and thus, in the last analysis, of
some inborn knowledge.
It was this psychological theory which I elaborated, tentatively and
in a clumsy terminology, between 1921 and 1926. It was this theory of
the formation of our knowledge which engaged and distracted me dur¬
ing my apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker.
One of the strange things about my intellectual history is this. Al¬
though I was at the time interested in the contrast between dogmatic
and critical thinking, and although I looked upon dogmatic thinking as
prescientific (and, where it pretends to be scientific, as "unscientific"),
and although I realized the link with the falsifiability criterion of de¬
marcation between science and pseudoscience, I did not appreciate that
there was a connection between all this and the problem of induction.
For years these two problems lived in different (and it appears almost
watertight) compartments of my mind, even though I believed that I
had solved the problem of induction by the simple discovery that in¬
duction by repetition did not exist (any more than did learning some¬
thing new by repetition): the alleged inductive method of science had to
be replaced by the method of (dogmatic) trial and (critical) error elimi¬
nation, which was the mode of discovery of all organisms from the
amoeba to Einstein.
20 Of course I was aware that my solutions to both these problems—the
problem of demarcation, the problem of induction—made use of the
same idea: that of the separation of dogmatic and critical thinking. Nev¬
ertheless the two problems seemed to me quite different; demarcation
had no similarity with Darwinian selection. Only after some years did I
realize that there was a close link, and that the problem of induction
arose essentially from a solution of the problem of demarcation—from
the mistaken (positivist) belief that what elevated science over pseudo¬
science was the "scientific method" of finding true, secure, and justifi¬
able knowledge, and that this method was the method of induction: a
belief that erred in more ways than one.

from Original Spin

by Lesley Dormen and Peter Edidin

Creativity, somebody once wrote, is the search for the elusive "Aha,"
that moment of insight when one sees the world, or a problem, or an
idea, in a new way. Traditionally, whether the discovery results in a
 Examining Creativity 77

cubist painting or an improved carburetor, we have viewed the creative

instant as serendipitous and rare—the product of genius, the property
of the elect.
Unfortunately, this attitude has had a number of adverse conse¬
quences. It encourages us to accept the myth that the creative energy so¬
ciety requires to address its own problems will never be present in
sufficient supply. Beyond that, we have come to believe that "ordinary"
people like ourselves can never be truly creative. As John Briggs, author
of Fire in the Crucible: The Alchemy of Creative Genius, said, "The way we
talk about creativity tends to reinforce the notion that it is some kind of
arbitrary gift. It's amazing the way 'not having it' becomes wedded to
people's self-image. They invariably work up a whole series of ratio¬
nalizations about why they 'aren't creative,' as if they were damaged
goods of some kind." Today, however, researchers are looking at cre¬
ativity, not as an advantage of the human elite, but as a basic human en¬
dowment. As Ruth Richards, a psychiatrist and creativity researcher at
McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, says, "You were being creative when
you learned how to walk. And if you are looking for something in the
fridge, you're being creative because you have to figure out for yourself
where it is." Creativity, in Richards' view, is simply fundamental to get¬
ting about in the world. It is "our ability to adapt to change. It is the very
essence of human survival."
In an age of rampant social and technological change, such an adap¬
tive capability becomes yet more crucial to the individual's effort to
maintain balance in a constantly shifting environment. "People need to
recognize that what Alvin Toffler called future shock is our daily real¬
ity," says Ellen McGrath, a clinical psychologist who teaches creativity
courses at New York University. "Instability is an intrinsic part of our
lives, and to deal with it every one of us will need to find new, creative
solutions to the challenges of everyday life. I think creativity will be the
survival skill of the '90s."
But can you really become more creative? If the word creative smacks
too much of Picasso at his canvas, then rephrase the question in a less
intimidating way: Do you believe you could deal with the challenges of
life in a more effective, inventive and fulfilling manner? If the answer is
yes, then the question becomes, "What's stopping you?"

Defining Yourself as a Creative Person

People often hesitate to recognize the breakthroughs in their own lives

as creative. But who has not felt the elation and surprise that come with
the sudden, seemingly inexplicable discovery of a solution to a stub¬
born problem? In that instant, in "going beyond the information given,"
as psychologist Jerome Bruner has said, to a solution that was the prod¬
uct of your own mind, you were expressing your creativity.
78 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

This impulse to "go beyond" to a new idea is not the preserve of a

genius, stresses David Henry Feldman, a developmental psychologist
at Tufts University and the author of Nature's Gambit, a study of child
prodigies. "Not everybody can be Beethoven," he says, "but it is true
that all humans, by virtue of being dreamers and fantasizers, have a ten¬
dency to take liberties with the world as it exists. Humans are always
transforming their inner and outer worlds. It's what I call the 'transfor¬
mational imperative.'"
The desire to play with reality, however, is highly responsive to so¬
cial control, and many of us are taught early on to repress the impulse.
As Mark Runco, associate professor of psychology at California State
University at Fullerton and the founder of the new Creativity Research
Journal, says, "We put children in groups and make them sit in desks
and raise their hands before they talk. We put all the emphasis on con¬
formity and order, then we wonder why they aren't being spontaneous
and creative."
Adults too are expected to conform in any number of ways and in a
variety of settings. Conformity, after all, creates a sense of order and of¬
fers the reassurance of the familiar. But to free one's natural creative im¬
pulses, it is necessary, to some extent, to resist the pressure to march in
step with the world. Begin small, suggests Richards. "Virtually nothing
you do can't be done in a slightly different, slightly better way. This has
nothing to do with so-called creative pursuits but simply with breaking
with your own mindsets and trying an original way of doing some ha¬
bitual task. Simply defer judgment on yourself for a little while and try
something new. Remember, the essence of life is not getting things right,
but taking risks, making mistakes, getting things wrong."
But it also must be recognized that the creative life is to some degree,
and on some occasions, a solitary one. Psycholinguist Vera John-Steiner,
author of Notebooks of the Mind: Explorations of Thinking, is one of many
creativity researchers who believe that a prerequisite for creative suc¬
cess is intensity of preoccupation, being pulled into your activity to
such an extent that you forget it's dinnertime." Such concentration,
John-Steiner believes, is part of our "natural creative bent," but we learn
to ignore it because of a fear that it will isolate us from others. To John-
Steiner, however, this fear is misplaced. Creative thought, she has writ¬
ten, is a search for meaning, a way to connect our inner sense of being
with some aspect of the world that preoccupies us. And she believes
that only by linking these two aspects of reality—the inner and the
outer—can we gain "some sense of being in control of life."

Avoiding the Myths

David Perkins, co-director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate

School of Education, asks in The Mind's Best Work, "When you have it—
 Examining Creativity 79

creativity, that is—what do you have?" The very impalpability of the

subject means that often creativity can be known only by its products.
Indeed, the most common way the researchers define creativity is by
saying it is whatever produces something that is: a. original; b. adaptive
(i.e., useful); c. meaningful to others. But because we don't understand
its genesis, we re often blocked or intimidated by the myths that sur¬
round and distort this mercurial subject.
One of these myths is, in Perkins's words, that creativity is "a kind of
stuff that the creative person has and uses to do creative things, never
mind other factors." This bit of folk wisdom, that creativity is a sort of
intangible psychic organ—happily present in some and absent in oth-
ers so annoys Perkins that he would like to abolish the word itself.
Another prevalent myth about creativity is that it is restricted to
those who are "geniuses"—that is, people with inordinately high IQs.
Ironically, this has been discredited by a study begun by Stanford psy¬
chologist Lewis Terman, the man who adapted the original French IQ
test for America. In the early 1920s, Terman had California schoolteach¬
ers choose 1,528 "genius" schoolchildren (those with an IQ above 135),
whose lives were then tracked year after year. After six decades, re¬
searchers found that the putative geniuses, by and large, did well in life.
They entered the professions in large numbers and led stable, prosper¬
ous lives. But very few made notable creative contributions to society,
and none did extraordinary creative work.
According to Dean Simonton, professor of psychology at the Uni¬
versity of California at Davis and the author of Genius, Creativity and
Leadership and Scientific Genius, "There just isn't any correlation be¬
tween creativity and IQ. The average college graduate has an IQ of
about 120, and this is high enough to write novels, do scientific research,
or any other kind of creative work."
A third myth, voiced eons ago by Socrates, lifts creativity out of our
own lives altogether into a mystical realm that makes it all but unap¬
proachable. In this view, the creative individual is a kind of oracle, the
passive conduit or channel chosen by God, or the tribal ancestors, or the
muse, to communicate sacred knowledge.
Although there are extraordinary examples of creativity, for which
the only explanation seems to be supernatural intervention (Mozart, the
story goes, wrote the overture to Don Giovanni in only a few hours, af¬
ter a virtually sleepless night and without revision), by and large, cre¬
ativity begins with a long and intensive apprenticeship.
Psychologist Howard Gruber believes that it takes at least 10 years of
immersion in a given domain before an eminent creator is likely to be
able to make a distinctive mark. Einstein, for example, who is popularly
thought to have doodled out the theory of relativity at age 26 in his
spare time, was in fact compulsively engaged in thinking about the
problem at least from the age of 16.
80 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

Finally, many who despair of ever being creative do so because they

tried once and failed, as though the truly creative always succeed. In
fact, just the opposite is true, says Dean Simonton. He sees genius, in a
sense, as inseparable from failure. "Great geniuses make tons of mis¬
takes," he says. "They generate lots of ideas and they accept being
wrong. They have a kind of internal fortress that allows them to fail and
just keep going. Look at Edison. He held over 1,000 patents, but most of
them are not only forgotten, they weren't worth much to begin with."

Mindlessness vs. Mindfulness

"Each of us desires to share with others our vision of the world, only
most of us have been taught that it's wrong to do things differently or
look at things differently," says John Briggs. "We lose confidence in our¬
selves and begin to look at reality only in terms of the categories by
which society orders it."
This is the state of routinized conformity and passive learning that
Harvard professor of psychology Ellen Langer calls, appropriately
enough, mindlessness. For it is the state of denying the perceptions and
promptings of our own minds, our individual selves. Langer and her
colleagues' extensive research over the past 15 years has shown that
when we act mindlessly, we behave automatically and limit our capac¬
ity for creative response. Mired down in a numbing daily routine, we
may virtually relinquish our capacity for independent thought and ac¬
tion.
20 By contrast, Langer refers to a life in which we use our affective, re¬
sponsive, perceptive faculties as "mindful." When we are mindful, her
research has shown, we avoid rigid, reflexive behavior in favor of a
more rmprovisational and intuitive response to life. We notice and feel
the world around us and then act in accordance with our feelings.
"Many, if not all, of the qualities that make up a mindful attitude are
characteristic of creative people," Langer writes in her new book. Mind¬
fulness. "Those who can free themselves of mindsets, open themselves
to new information and surprise, play with perspective and context,
and focus on process rather than outcome are likely to be creative,
whether they are scientists, artists, or cooks."
Much of Langer's research has demonstrated the vital relationship
between creativity and uncertainty, or conditionality. For instance, in
one experiment, Langer and Alison Piper introduced a collection of ob¬
jects to one group of people by saying, "This is a hair dryer," and "This
is a dog's chew toy," and so on. Another group was told "This could be
a hair dryer," and "This could be a dog's chew toy." Later, the experi¬
menters for both groups invented a need for an eraser, but only those
people who had been conditionally introduced to the objects thought to
use the dog's toy in this new way.
 Examining Creativity 81

The intuitive understanding that a single thing is, or could be, many
things, depending on how you look at it, is at the heart of the attitude
Langer calls mindfulness. But can such an amorphous state be culti¬
vated? Langer believes that it can, by consciously discarding the idea
that any given moment of your day is fixed in its form. "I teach people
to componentize' their lives into smaller pieces," she says. "In the
morning, instead of mindlessly downing your orange juice, taste it. Is it
what you want? Try something else if it isn't. When you walk to work,
turn left instead of right. You'll notice the street you're on, the buildings
and the weather. Mindfulness, like creativity, is nothing more than a re¬
turn to who you are. By minding your responses to the world, you will
come to know yourself again. How you feel. What you want. What you
want to do."

Creating the Right Atmosphere

Understanding the genesis of creativity, going beyond the myths to un¬

derstand your creative potential, and recognizing your ability to break
free of old ways of thinking are the three initial steps to a more creative
life. The fourth is finding ways to work that encourage personal com¬
mitment and expressiveness.
Letting employees learn what they want to do has never been a very
high priority in the workplace. There, the dominant regulation has al¬
ways been, "Do what you are told."
Today, however, economic realities are providing a new impetus for
change. The pressure on American businesses to become more produc¬
tive and innovative has made creative thinking a hot commodity in the
business community. But innovation, business is now learning, is likely
to be found wherever bright and eager people think they can find it. And
some people are looking in curious places.
Financier Wayne Silby, for example, founded the Calvert Group of
funds, which today manages billions of dollars in assets. Silby, whose
business card at one point read Chief Daydreamer, occasionally retreats
for inspiration to a sensory deprivation tank, where he floats in warm
water sealed off from light and sound. "I went into the tank during a
time when the government was changing money-market deposit regu¬
lations, and I needed to think how to compete with banks. Floating in
the tank I got the idea of joining them instead. We would up creating an
$800-million program. Often we already have answers to our problems,
but we don't quiet ourselves enough to see the solutions bubbling just
below the surface." Those solutions will stay submerged, he says, "un¬
less you create a culture that encourages creative approaches, where it's
OK to have bad ideas."
Toward this goal, many companies have turned to creativity consul¬
tants, like Synectics, Inc., in Cambridge, MA. Half the battle, according
82 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

to Synectics facilitator Jeff Mauzy, is to get the clients to relax and accept
that they are in a safe place where the cutthroat rules of the workplace
don't apply, so they can allow themselves to exercise their creative po¬
tential in group idea sessions.
Pamela Webb Moore, director of naming services (she helps compa¬
nies figure out good names for their products) at Synectics, agrees. One
technique she uses to limber up the minds of tightly focused corporate
managers is "sleight of head." While working on a particular problem,
she 11 ask clients to pretend to work on something else. In one real-life
example, a Synectics-trained facilitator took a group of product-
development and marketing managers from the Etonic shoe corpora¬
tion on an "excursion," a conscious walk away from the problem—in
this case, to come up with a new kind of tennis shoe.
The facilitator asked the Etonic people to imagine they were at their
favorite vacation spot. "One guy," Moore says, "was on a tropical is¬
land, walking on the beach in his bare feet. He described how wonder¬
ful the water and sand felt on his feet, and he said, 'I wish we could play
tennis barefoot.' The whole thing would have stopped right there if
somebody had complained that while his colleague was wandering
around barefoot, they were supposed to come up with a shoe. Instead,
one of the marketing people there was intrigued, and the whole group
decided to go off to play tennis barefoot on a rented court at 10 at night."
While the Etonic people played tennis, the facilitator listed every¬
thing they said about how it felt. The next morning, the group looked at
her assembled list of comments, and they realized that what they liked
about playing barefoot was the lightness of being without shoes, and
the ability to pivot easily on both the ball of the foot and the heel. Nine
months later, the company produced an extremely light shoe called the
Catalyst, which featured an innovative two-piece sole that made it eas¬
ier for players to pivot.

The Payoff

In The Courage to Create, Rollo May wrote that for much of this century,
researchers had avoided the subject of creativity because they perceived
it as "unscientific, mysterious, disturbing and too corruptive of the sci¬
entific training of graduate students." But today researchers are coming
to see that creativity, at once fugitive and ubiquitous, is the mark of hu¬
man nature itself.
Whether in business or the arts, politics or personal relationships,
creativity involves "going beyond the information given" to create or
reveal something new in the world. And almost invariably, when the
mind exercises its creative muscle, it also generates a sense of pleasure.
The feeling may be powerfully mystical, as it is for New York artist
Rhonda Zwillinger, whose embellished artwork appeared in the film
 Examining Creativity 83

Slaves of New York. Zwillinger reports, "There are times when I'm work¬
ing and it is almost as though I'm a vessel and there is a force operating
through me. It is the closest I come to having a religious experience."
The creative experience may also be quiet and full of wonder, as it was
for Isaac Newton, who compared his lifetime of creative effort to "a boy
playing on the seashore and diverting himself and then finding a
smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the greater ocean
of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
But whatever the specific sensation, creativity always carries with it
a powerful sense of the mind working at the peak of its ability. Creativ¬
ity truly is, as David Perkins calls it, the mind's best work, its finest ef¬
fort. We may never know exactly how the brain does it, but we can feel
that it is exactly what the brain was meant to do.
Aha!
84 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

WRITING PROJECT

This chapter has included a number of Thinkings Writing Activities and

readings that encouraged you to reflect on the nature of creativity and on
your own creativity—past, present, and future. Be sure to reread what you
wrote for those activities: you may be able to use it to help yourself complete
this project. You may also want to include material from the chapter readings
in your essay; if so, be sure to document them correctly by introducing the au¬
thors and acknowledging their ideas. And, of course, use quotation marks or
set off the quote by indenting if you decide to use their words.

WAITING PROJECT Imagining Your Life More Creatively

Think creatively to imagine how some part of your life could be (or
could have been) more satisfying or exciting, you need to focus on
one or more specific areas of your life, such as an important rela¬
tionship, your college work, or a job that would be ideal for you.
You could write about the past and how things might have been dif¬
ferent with a more creative approach, or you could describe a plan
for the present, or you might look to the future in a creative way.
Then write an essay in which you put forth your vision. Follow di¬
rections given by your instructor as to length, format, and so forth.

Begin by considering the key elements of the Thinkings Writing Model.

Purpose
Your primary purpose here is to employ the strategies for thinking, living,
and writing creatively that have been presented in this chapter, to create a
new vision of your own life. Doing this will require you, to some extent, to
step back from your life, to become an observer of how you have lived, are
living, or might be living, and then to become a creator of a potentially dif¬
ferent vision.
Another purpose will be to show, not tell, what the creative changes in
your life would be by giving enough examples to let your readers picture
what you mean.

Audience
You have an interesting and varied audience for this Writing Project. In a real
sense, you are your own most important audience, for who else could be
more involved with or interested in the subject? Beyond yourself, you may
choose to show your writing to key people in your life, especially if any of
them would be affected by the creative changes you propose. Their reactions
to early drafts could be very helpful as you revise your writing.
 Examining Creativity 85

At another level, your classmates may be part of your audience, espe¬

cially if your writing is going to be shared with them or reviewed by them.
All the readers mentioned so far—yourself, key people in your life, and your
classmates will be interested in what you say, and especially in the changes
you propose, so be sure to include enough background information about
how your life was, or is, for them to readily understand the impact of what
you are proposing.
Finally, your instructor is also part of your audience, and his or her judg¬
ment of your work will matter to you. Therefore, carefully consider both your
instructor s directions and the points that have been emphasized in class. Be
aware that as a writing teacher, your instructor is interested not only in what
you say, but also in how you say it; edit your final draft with great care so that
no errors remain to detract from your ideas.

Subject
Thinking and writing about our own lives can be both exciting and challeng¬
ing. Often we get so busy just living our lives that we don't take time to ac¬
tually think about them and about how they might be different. We begin to
think that whatever is has to be.
For this Writing Project, you should try to use as many of the suggestions
in the chapter as you can to help yourself generate ideas. This will take time,
so begin as soon as possible. You may think of changes you aren't sure you
want to make in your life, and your critical thinking abilities will help you
sort these out.
A potential problem with this subject is that you may believe that there is
little in your life that can be changed; if this is the case, think carefully and
honestly about how true this really is. If some areas cannot be changed, think
creativity to discover other areas to write about. Note that you are not neces¬
sarily being asked to propose major changes. What you end up writing about
could be a very different life or simply a richer, more fully realized version of
what your life is now. For instance, you might envision an ideal job situation
in which you would like to find yourself after you have completed your ed¬
ucation.

Writer
As the expert on your own life, you can feel comfortable as you work on this
project. If you are the creative type, you should welcome the chance to let
your imagination go! If you consider yourself unimaginative, take this op¬
portunity to develop your creative side. (We are all creative, as this chapter
reminds us.)
86 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

The Writing Process

The following sections will guide you through the stages of generating, plan-
ning, drafting, and revising as you work on an essay about more creativity in
some aspect of your life. Try to be particularly conscious of how creative
thinking can help you discover and connect ideas.

Generating Ideas
You have already written about your creativity if you've done the
Thinking-^Writing Activities in this chapter. Review what you wrote. You
will probably see that you noted a number of ideas that can pertain to this
project. Then, to discover more ideas and a possible focus, follow these sug¬
gestions and jot down your responses.

■ Think about two or three things you do that are particularly important
to you. How might they become more satisfying if you became more
creative in your approach.
® Think about a difficult or tedious situation in the past that you now re¬
alize could have been improved by a more creative approach.
■ Envision your life five years from now. What activities do you hope to
be involved in? How do you believe they could be shaped by creative
thinking? What would be your ideal job situation?
■ Ask yourself which of the three suggestions above intrigues you most.
Do you want to think more creatively about the present, the past, or the
future—or a combination of time frames?
■ Choose a situation and brainstorm or ask questions (see page 13 in
Chapter 1 and page 56 in this chapter).
■ Talk to friends or family members about your brainstorming, to find
out if they have some suggestions.
■ Ask yourself if you have enough ideas to begin to draft your paper. If
not, you may want to try again, with some other aspect of your life.

Defining a Focus
Write a few sentences in which you explore the question of whether you want
to focus on one area of change or several. If several, do they have a common
thread or are they quite different? Your sentences might be like these:

I think that i would like to be a more creative cook. Why? How? So

that my housemates and I can have more enjoyable meals when it’s my
turn in the kitchen,- so that I can really enjoy cooking. . . . Some ways
that I can do this is to take a cooking course, get some really different
cookbooks out of the library—like from other countries or other
 The Writing Process 87

regions, or vegan, or barbecue; I should spend some time with my un¬

cle who makes such good one-dish meals, find some tasty Web sites,
watch some of those cooking shows instead of surfing away.

Some things in my life that I want to make better are my relationship

with my girlfriend, the way my rooms looks, and my boring job.
There s not much in common here except that I’m not very excited by
any of them right now. I wonder how I would like these three parts of
my life to be different within the next six months. I wonder what my
ideal job would be.

Can you see how these focus sentences provide a good start on the paper?

Organizing Ideas
Once you have decided whether you will focus on one area or on two or
three, and after having done some drafting, you can

■ describe your current or past situation,

■ describe some changes you would like to make or wish you had made,
■ describe the improved situation.

Does this thinking suggest a method of organization? Is that organization ef¬

fective or is it too stodgy for a paper about creative thinking? If something
other than a regular essay structure seems right for this project, how about
narrating the events at a time in the future when you have made some
changes? How about imagining your new (or old) situation from your
boyfriend's or mother's or boss's point of view? How about some graphics?
or a poem or a song as part of the paper?
Map out an organization or plan that you think might work.

Drafting
As you translate your ideas, notes, and early versions into coherent writing,
you need to decide how you can draft in ways that will help you revise your
work effectively. Because the essay you are about to write has three distinct
components—your belief, your experience, and their connections—you may
want to draft each component separately and then think about how to connect
them. In addition, you should recall the concepts presented in Chapter 1, espe¬
cially the use of questions as a productive way to begin many forms of writing.

Revising
Once you have completed a draft that you think is close to a final version, you
should put it aside for a day or two. If you don't have time to do that, then at
least take a break before trying to revise. When you are ready to "re-see" your
writing, read it through slowly, preferably aloud.
88 Chapter 3 Thinking Creatively, Writing Creatively

Consider it in terms of the following questions. (You may also use these
questions when you review and comment on your classmates' drafts.)
■ Are the incidents, people, and places involved in the experience related
with enough detail to make the experience clear for readers and hold
their attention? Where might further specific information or detail be
offered?
■ Is the effect the experience had on your belief made clear? Does the es¬
say seem focused? If not, where is the focus lost or vague?
■ How thoughtful are the reflection on the experience and the process of
thinking it through? Is the value of the experience fully expressed?
■ Are the opening and the conclusion effective? If not, what might make
a better opening to get readers interested? How might the conclusion
leave readers with a better understanding?
■ Do there seem to be any problems with the use of language or sentence
structure, or connections between ideas? Are any parts of the essay dif¬
ficult to read? How might words and sentences be revised?

Proofreading
After you prepare a final draft, check for standard grammar and punctuation.
Proofread carefully for omitted words and punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread again for
the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.

STUDENT WRITING
Discovering Creativity by Not Looking For It
by Jessie Lange

There have been numerous times when I have sat in front of a blank
computer screen, a writing assignment in hand, feeling completely
uninspired and uncreative. Without having even begun I think, "Now
what?" There have been numerous times when I’ve just started filling
up that screen with meaningless, dry words that really have no effect
on me or anyone else. Yes, I’m getting the job done, but not the job
I d like- not my best work, not anywhere near it. One thing that I’ve
found in my life is that in your most uncreative ruts sometimes you
can t pull yourself out all on your own. You can't always, sitting in an
idea-less vacuum, turn on the creativity. Sometimes you will save
yourself time and produce a much more fulfilling piece of work if you
take the time out to go out of the world of your blank screen For me
this has always meant literally getting outdoors, because somehow it
always seems that I find outside what I’ve been looking for inside.
 Student Writing 89

It was the first English assignment of my senior year of high

school—an interpretation of a Buddhist legend—and I was struggling
with its meaning. The legend is about a set of stairs leading to the top
of the tower from where you can see the "whole horizon" and the
"loveliest landscape”—a symbol of attaining nirvana. The paradox in
the legend is that you can only reach the top if you do not believe in
the legend itself. How would those who believe, then, ever reach the
top? How can you even start the climb without making the conscious
decision to do so?
Being in the country on weekends has many benefits, one of them
being that I could go outside to clear my head. I lit my Williams
Sonoma oil lamp and walked out into the night that offered the occa¬
sional drizzle and a strong breeze that ruffled the leaves of the tree I
lay down under. I was there for an hour, feeling the drops on my face
and the dampness settling into my body, before it happened. I rolled
over and looked out into the field, because I sensed something the
way that you can and will when you’re listening with your entire body.
Farther out, right before the lawn becomes high grass and eventually
woods, were four white shapes moving across my line of vision. The
same deer I casually glance at during the day, were like ghosts grazing
out there at night. Just faint, light vaporous figures against the pitch
black. That moment was like seeing the "whole horizon." Those ani¬
mals, moving with such grace, were unaware of my presence. For all
they knew, I was another tree silently overseeing their nightly ritual.
Watching these beasts—becuase that’s what they are, wonderfully
wild animals—I was witnessing a scene that could have taken place in
this same spot on this same night hundreds or thousand of years be¬
fore. I reached for my lantern and turned up the flame, holding it in
front of me for a better view. This light, however, obstructed my vi¬
sion rather than illuminating it. It was only when I put the flame aside
and cupped my hands around my eyes, creating a deeper darkness,
that I could really see the deer. And then I realized that perhaps that
was why only those who do not believe the legend ever climb the
stairs of the tower—because when you actively search for things, like
holding the light, perhaps you prevent yourself from seeing them. Had
I not put my writing aside and taken that walk I would never have
found this answer, the answer I was looking for. I wrote my English es¬
say and I also learned something about creativity in my own life. Some
of your most creative moments happen when you're not looking. In
the journey up the steps of the tower toward creativity, sometimes it
is not those who are keenly searching for a victory of sorts, but those
who are instead turning down the light, that begin the climb.
 CHAPTER 4

Thinking Critically About Writing

Revising Purposefully

Critical Thinking Focus: Decision making

Writing Focus: Making decisions about drafts
Reading Themes: People making decisions; writers thinking about
revision
Writing Project: Analyzing a decision to be made

Thinking Critically and Revising

After professional writers have used creative thinking to generate ideas and
early drafts, they bring their critical thinking abilities into play to revise their
writing—to "see it again." As writers revise, they keep purpose and audience
in mind and make decisions about what to keep and what to change in their
drafts. In other words, revision involves identifying possible changes and
then deciding whether these changes will help to accomplish the writer's
purpose with an audience.
Revision is often the key to the success of a piece of writing. Effective
writers have the ability to reread drafts critically, to rethink what those drafts
are saying, and to rewrite—or revise—when necessary.
Decision making, an important application of critical thinking, plays a
key role in life as well. This chapter presents an organized method for mak¬
ing decisions, one that can even lead to the best possible life decisions. The
chapter then applies this method to revising drafts and to a Writing Project.

90
 Making Decisions 91

Making Decisions
In order to reach various goals in life, we try to make the best decisions for
ourselves or our community. Even so, we don't always make the most in¬
formed or intelligent decisions possible. In fact, most of us regularly have the
experience of mentally kicking ourselves because of having made a poor de¬
cision. (Can you remember any recent decision you made that you would
correct, if you had an opportunity to do so?)
Many faulty or regrettable decisions involve relatively minor issues, such
as selecting an unappealing dish in a restaurant, hastily agreeing to go on a
blind date, taking a course that does not meet our expectations. Although
these decisions may result in unpleasant consequences, the discomfort is nei¬
ther life threatening nor long-lasting (although a disappointing course may
seem to last forever!). However, there also are a great number of significant
decisions in which poor choices can result in considerably more damaging
and far-reaching consequences. For example, one reason the current divorce
rate in the United States stands at 50 percent is poor decisions people make
before or after the vows "till death do us part." Similarly, the fact that many
employed adults wake up in the morning unhappy about going to their jobs,
anxiously waiting for the end of the day and the conclusion of the week
(TGIF!) when they will be free to do what they really want to, suggests that
somewhere along the line, they have made poor decisions or felt trapped by
circumstances beyond their control.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 4.1

Analyzing a Previous Decision

1. Think back to an important decision you made that turned out well and de¬
scribe the experience as specifically as possible.
2. Reconstruct the reasonins process you used in makins your decision. Did
you do any or all of the followins things?

■ Clearly define the decision to be made and the related issues?

■ Consider various choices and anticipate their consequences?
■ Gather additional information to help in your analysis?
■ Evaluate the various pros and cons of different courses of action?
■ Use a chart or diasram to aid in your deliberations?
■ Create a specific plan of action to implement your ideas?
■ Periodically review your decision to make any necessary adjustments?
92 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefuttv

An Organized Approach to Making Decisions

As you were reflecting on the successful decision you wrote about in Think¬
ings ^Writing Activity 4.1, you probably noticed your mind working in a
systematic way as you thought your way through the decision situation. Of
course, we often make important decisions with less thoughtful analysis by
acting impulsively and we are forced to cope with the consequences of these
mistaken choices. Our "intuitions" can be a useful guide to success when the
intuitions are informed intuitions—based on lessons learned from past ex¬
perience and thoughtful reflection. Naturally, there are no guarantees that
a careful analysis wall lead to a successful result—there are often too many
unknown elements and factors beyond our control. But we can certainly irn-
pro\e our success rate as well as our speed bv becoming more knowledge¬
able about tire decision-making process.
This approach consists of five steps. As you master these steps, they will
become integrated into your way of thinking, and you will be able to apply
them in a natural and flexible way.

Step 1: Define the Decision Clearly

This seems like an obvious step, but very frequently, decision making goes
wrong at the starting point. For example, imagine that you decide you want
to have a "more active social life" (or perhaps a "less active social life"). The
problem with characterizing your decision this way is that it defines the
situation too generally and doesn't provide any clear direction for vour
analysis. Do you mean that you want to develop an intimate, romantic rela¬
tionship? Do you want to cultivate more close friendships? Do vou want to
engage in more social activities? Do you want to meet new people? In short,
there are many ways to define more clearly the decision to have a "more ac¬
tive social life." The more specific your definition of the decision to be made,
the clearer will be your analysis and the greater the likelihood of success.
Strategy: Write a one-page analysis that describes your decision-making situa¬
tion as clearly and specifically as possible.

Step 2: Consider All Possible Choices

Successful decision makers explore all possible choices in their situation not
simply the obvious ones. In fact, the less obvious choices often turn out to be
the most effective. For instance, one student couldn't decide whether to ma¬
jor in accounting or in business management. In discussing his situation with
other members of the class, he revealed that his real interest was in the area
of graphic design and illustration. Although he was very talented, he consid¬
ered this area only a hobby, not a possible career choice. Class members
pointed out to him that design and illustration could prove to be his best ca¬
reer opportunity, but he needed first to see it as a possibility.
 Making Decisions 93

People who approach decision situations thoughtfully are more success¬

ful decision makers in every area of their lives, including their writing.

Strategy: List as many possible choices for your situation as you can, both ob¬
vious and not obvious. Ask other people for additional suggestions and don't censor
or prejudge any ideas.

Step 3: Gather All Relevant Information and Evaluate the Pros

and Cons of Each Possible Choice
In many cases, you may lack sufficient information to make an informed
choice. Unfortunately, this doesn't prevent people from plunging ahead any¬
way, making a decision that is more a gamble than an informed choice. In
contrast to this questionable approach, it makes much more sense to seek out
the information you need in order to determine which of the choices you
 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

have identified has the best chance of success. In the case of the student men¬
tioned in Step 2, he would need to secure certain crucial information in order
to determine whether to consider a career in graphic design and illustration:
What are the specific careers within this general field? What sort of academic
preparation and experience is required for the various careers? What are the
prospects for employment in these areas, and how well do they pay?
Strategy: For each possible choice that you identified, create questions regard¬
ing information you need; then obtain that information.
In addition to obtaining all relevant information, each of the possible
choices you identified has certain advantages and disadvantages, and it is es¬
sential that you analyze these pros and cons in an organized fashion. In the
case of the student in Step 2, the choice of a career in accounting might on the
one hand offer advantages like ready employment opportunities, the flexi¬
bility of working in many different situations and geographical locations,
moderate-to-high income expectations, and job security. On the other hand,
disadvantages might be that accounting does not reflect a deep and abiding
interest of the student, that he might lose interest in it over time, and that the
career might not result in a personal challenge and fulfillment that he needs.
Strategy: Using a format similar to the one presented below, analyze the pros
and cons of each of your possible choices.

Possible Choices Information Needed Pros Cons

1.
2.

Step 4: Select the Choice That Seems Best Suited

to the Situation
The first three steps of this organized approach to making decisions are de¬
signed to help you analyze your decision situation: to clearly define the deci¬
sion, to generate possible choices, to gather relevant information, and to
evaluate the pros and cons of the choices you have identified. In the fourth step,
you must attempt to synthesize what you have learned, weaving together all
the various threads into a conclusion that you consider your 'Test” choice.
How do you do this? There is no one simple way to identify your "best" choice,
but there are some useful strategies for guiding your deliberations.
Strategy: Identify and prioritize the goal(s) of your decision situation and de¬
termine which of your choices best meets these goals. This process will probably
involve reviewing and perhaps refining your definition of the decision situa¬
tion. For example, in the case of the student we have been considering, some
goals might include choosing a career that will (a) provide financial security,
(b) provide personal fulfillment, (c) make use of special talents, and (d) offer
plentiful opportunities along with job security.
Once identified, the goals can be ranked in order of priority, which will
 Making Decisions 95

then suggest what the "best" choice will be. If the student ranks goals (a) and
(d) at the top of the list, a choice of accounting or business administration
may make sense. However, if the student ranks goals (b) and (c) at the top,
pursuing a career in graphic design and illustration may be the best selection.
Strategy: Anticipate the consequences of each choice by "preliving" the choices.
This is another helpful strategy for deciding on the best choice. Project your¬
self into the future, imagining as realistically as you can the consequences of
each possible choice. As with previous strategies, this process is aided by
writing your thoughts down and discussing them with others.

Step 5: Implement a Plan of Action and Monitor the Results,

Making Necessary Adjustments
Once you have made your best choice, you need to develop and implement
a specific, concrete plan of action. The more specific and concrete your plan
of action, the greater the likelihood of success. If, for instance, the student in
the case we have been considering decides to pursue a career in graphic de¬
sign and illustration, his plan should include reviewing the major that best
meets his needs, discussing his situation with students and faculty in that de¬
partment, planning what courses to take, and perhaps speaking with people
working in the field.
Strategy: Create a schedule that details the steps you will be taking to implement
your decision, along with a time line for taking these steps. Naturally, your plan is
merely a starting point. As you actually begin taking the steps in your plan, you
will likely discover that changes and adjustments need to be made. You may
find new Information in the light of which the choice you made appears to be
wrong. For example, as the student we have been discussing takes courses in
graphic design and illustration, he may realize that his interest in the field is not
as serious as he once thought and that although he liked this area as a hobby, he
does not want it to be his life work. In this case, he should return to considering
his other choices, perhaps adding some choices that he did not consider before.
Strategy: After implementing your choice, evaluate its success by identifying
what is working and what is not; then make the necessary adjustments to improve the
situation.

Method for Making Decisions

Step 1: Define the decision clearly.
Step 2: Consider all possible choices.
Step 3: Gather all relevant information and evaluate the pros and
cons of each possible choice.
Step 4: Select the choice that seems best suited to the situation.
Step 5: Implement a plan of action and monitor the results,
making necessary adjustments.
96 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

Applying the Method for Making Decisions

Achieving objectivity about the lives and decisions of others is sometimes
easier than attaining objectivity about our own lives. To familiarize yourself
with applying the five steps just presented, read the following excerpt from
Amy Tan's book of short stories The Joy Luck Club. "The Red Candle" is one
of Tan's short stories complete in itself. Then work through Thinking^Writ¬
ing Activity 4.2.

from The Joy Luck Club

The Red Candle
by Amy Tan

Lindo Jong

I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise. This means nothing

to you, because to you promises mean nothing. A daughter can promise
to come to dinner, but if she has a headache, if she has a traffic jam, if she
wants to watch a favorite movie on TV, she no longer has a promise.
I watched this same movie when you did not come. The American
soldier promises to come back and marry the girl. She is crying with a
genuine feeling and he says. Promise! Promise! Honey-sweetheart, my
promise is as good as gold." Then he pushes her onto the bed. But he
doesn t come back. His gold is like yours, it is only fourteen carats.
To Chinese people, fourteen carats isn't real gold. Feel my bracelets.
They must be twenty-four carats, pure inside and out.
It's too late to change you, but I'm telling you this because I worry
about your baby. I worry that someday she will say, "Thank you.
Grandmother, for the gold bracelet. I'll never forget you." But later, she
will forget her promise. She will forget she had a grandmother.
* * *

In this same war movie, the American soldier goes home and he falls to
his knees asking another girl to marry him. And the girl's eyes run back
and forth, so shy, as if she had never considered this before. And sud¬
denly! her eyes look straight down and she knows now she loves him,
so much she wants to cry. "Yes," she says at last, and they marry forever!
This was not my case. Instead, the village matchmaker came to my
family when I was just two years old. No, nobody told me this, I re¬
member it all. It was summertime, very hot and dusty outside, and I
could hear cicadas crying in the yard. We were under some trees in our
orchard. The servants and my brothers were picking pears high above
me. And I was sitting in my mother's hot sticky arms. I was waving my
 Applying the Method for Making Decisions 97

hand this way and that, because in front of me floated a small bird with
horns and colorful paper-thin wings. And then the paper bird flew
away and in front of me were two ladies. I remember them because one
lady made watery 'shrrhh, shrrhh'' sounds. When I was older, I came
to recognize this as a Peking accent, which sounds quite strange to
Taiyuan people's ears.
The two ladies were looking at my face without talking. The lady
with the watery voice had a painted face that was melting. The other
lady had the dry face of an old tree trunk. She looked first at me, then at
the painted lady.
Of course, now I know the tree-trunk lady was the old village match¬
maker, and the other was Huang Taitai, the mother of the boy I would
be forced to marry. No, it's not true what some Chinese say about girl
babies being worthless. It depends on what kind of girl baby you are. In
my case, people could see my value. I looked and smelled like a pre¬
cious buncake, sweet with a good clean color.
The matchmaker bragged about me: "An earth horse for an earth
sheep. This is the best marriage combination." She patted my arm and I
pushed her hand away. Huang Taitai whispered in her shrrhh-shrrhh
voice that perhaps I had an unusually bad pichi, a bad temper. But the
matchmaker laughed and said, "Not so, not so. She is a strong horse. She
will grow up to be a hard worker who serves you well in your old age."
And this is when Huang Taitai looked down at me with a cloudy face
as though she could penetrate my thoughts and see my future inten¬
tions. I will never forget her look. Her eyes opened wide, she searched
my face carefully and then she smiled. I could see a large gold tooth
staring at me like the blinding sun and then the rest of her teeth opened
wide as if she were going to swallow me down in one piece.
This is how I became betrothed to Huang Taitai's son, who I later dis¬
covered was just a baby, one year younger than I. His name was Tyan-
yu—tyan for "sky," because he was so important, and yu, meaning
"leftovers," because when he was born his father was very sick and his
family thought he might die. Tyan-yu would be the leftover of his fa¬
ther's spirit. But his father lived and his grandmother was scared the
ghosts would turn their attention to this baby boy and take him instead.
So they watched him carefully, made all his decisions, and he became
very spoiled.
But even if I had known I was getting such a bad husband, I had no
choice, now or later. That was how backward families in the country
were. We were always the last to give up stupid old-fashioned customs.
In other cities already, a man could choose his own wife, with his par¬
ents' permission of course. But we were cut off from this type of new
thought. You never heard if ideas were better in another city, only if they
were worse. We were told stories of sons who were so influenced by bad
wives that they threw their old, crying parents out into the street. So,
Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

Taiyuanese mothers continued to choose their daughters-in-law, ones

who would raise proper sons, care for the old people, and faithfully
sweep the family burial grounds long after the old ladies had gone to
their graves.
Because I was promised to the Huangs' son for marriage, my own
family began treating me as if I belonged to somebody else. My mother
would say to me when the rice bowl went up to my face too many times,
"Look how much Huang Taitai's daughter can eat."
My mother did not treat me this way because she didn't love me. She
would say this biting back her tongue, so she wouldn't wish for some¬
thing that was no longer hers.
I was actually a very obedient child, but sometimes I had a sour look
on my face—only because I was hot or tired or very ill. This is when my
mother would say, "Such an ugly face. The Huangs won't want you and
our whole family will be disgraced." And I would cry more to make my
face uglier.
"It's no use," my mother would say. "We have made a contract. It
cannot be broken." And I would cry even harder.
I didn't see my future husband until I was eight or nine. The world
that I knew was our family compound in the village outside of Taiyuan.
My family lived in a modest two-story house with a smaller house in
the same compound, which was really just two side-by-side rooms for
our cook, an everyday servant, and their families. Our house sat on a lit¬
tle hill. We called this hill Three Steps to Heaven, but it was really just
centuries of hardened layers of mud washed up by the Fen River. On
the east wall of our compound was the river, which my father said liked
to swallow little children. He said it had once swallowed the whole
town of Taiyuan. The river ran brown in the summer. In the winter, the
river was blue-green in the narrow fast-moving spots. In the wider
places, it was frozen still, white with cold.
Oh, I can remember the new year when my family went to the river
and caught many fish—giant slippery creatures plucked while they
were still sleeping in their frozen riverbeds—so fresh that even after
they were gutted they would dance on their tails when thrown into the
hot pan.
That was also the year I first saw my husband as a little boy. When
the firecrackers went off, he cried loud—wah!—with a big open mouth
even though he was not a baby.
Later I would see him at red-egg ceremonies when one-month-old
boy babies were given their real names. He would sit on his grand¬
mother's old knees, almost cracking them with his weight. And he
would refuse to eat everything offered to him, always turning his nose
away as though someone were offering him a stinky pickle and not a
sweet cake.
So I didn't have instant love for my future husband the way you see
on television today. I thought of this boy more like a troublesome
 Applying the Method for Making Decisions 99

cousin. I learned to be polite to the Huangs and especially to Huang

Taitai. My mother would push me toward Huang Taitai and say, "What
do you say to your mother?" And I would be confused, not knowing
which mother she meant. So I would turn to my real mother and say.
Excuse me, Ma, and then I would turn to Huang Taitai and present
her with a little goodie to eat, saying, "For you, Mother." I remember it
was once a lump of syaumei, a little dumpling I loved to eat. My mother
told Huang Taitai I had made this dumpling especially for her, even
though I had only poked its steamy sides with my finger when the cook
poured it onto the serving plate.
My life changed completely when I was twelve, the summer the
heavy rains came. The Fen River which ran through the middle of my
family's land flooded the plains. It destroyed all the wheat my family
had planted that year and made the land useless for years to come. Even
our house on top of the little hill became unlivable. When we came
down from the second story, we saw the floors and furniture were cov¬
ered with sticky mud. The courtyards were littered with uprooted trees,
broken bits of walls, and dead chickens. We were so poor in all this
mess.
You couldn't go to an insurance company back then and say. Some¬
body did this damage, pay me a million dollars. In those days, you were
unlucky if you had exhausted your own possibilities. My father said we
had no choice but to move the family to Wushi, to the south near Shang¬
hai, where my mother's brother owned a small flour mill. My father ex¬
plained that the whole family, except for me, would leave immediately.
I was twelve years old, old enough to separate from my family and live
with the Huangs.

The roads were so muddy and filled with giant potholes that no
truck was willing to come to the house. All the heavy furniture and bed¬
ding had to be left behind, and these were promised to the Huangs as
my dowry. In this way, my family was quite practical. The dowry was
enough, more than enough, said my father. But he could not stop my
mother from giving me her chang, a necklace made out of a tablet of red
jade. When she put it around my neck, she acted very stern, so I knew
she was very sad. "Obey your family. Do not disgrace us," she said.
"Act happy when you arrive. Really, you're very lucky.
* * *

25 The Huangs' house also sat next to the river. While our house had been
flooded, their house was untouched. This is because their house sat
higher up in the valley. And this was the first time I realized the Huangs
had a much better position than my family. They looked down on us,
which made me understand why Huang Taitai and Tyan-yu had such
long noses.
When I passed under the Huangs' stone-and-wood gateway arch, I
saw a large courtyard with three or four rows of small, low buildings.
100 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

Some were for storing supplies, others for servants and their families.
Behind these modest buildings stood the main house.
I walked closer and stared at the house that would be my home for
the rest of my life. The house had been in the family for many genera¬
tions. It was not really so old or remarkable, but I could see it had grown
up along with the family. There were four stories, one for each gen¬
eration: great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and children. The
house had a confused look. It had been hastily built and then rooms and
floors and wings and decorations had been added on in every which
manner, reflecting too many opinions. The first level was built of river
rocks held together by straw-filled mud. The second and third levels
were made of smooth bricks with an exposed walkway to give it the
look of a palace tower. And the top level had gray slab walls topped
with a red tile roof. To make the house seem important, there were two
large round pillars holding up a veranda entrance to the front door.
These pillars were painted red, as were the wooden window borders.
Someone, probably Huang Taitai, had added imperial dragon heads at
the corners of the roof.
Inside the house held a different kind of pretense. The only nice room
was a parlor on the first floor, which the Huangs used to receive guests.
This room contained tables and chairs carved out of red lacquer, fine
pillows embroidered with the Huang family name in the ancient style,
and many precious things that gave the look of wealth and old prestige.
The rest of the house was plain and uncomfortable and noisy with the
complaints of twenty relatives. I think with each generation the house
had grown smaller inside, more crowded. Each room had been cut in
half to make two.
No big celebration was held when I arrived. Huang Taitai didn't
have red banners greeting me in the fancy room on the first floor. Tyan-
yu was not there to greet me. Instead, Huang Taitai hurried me upstairs
to the second floor and into the kitchen, which was a place where fam¬
ily children didn't usually go. This was a place for cooks and servants.
So I knew my standing.
30 That first day, I stood in my best padded dress at the low wooden
table and began to chop vegetables. I could not keep my hands steady.
I missed my family and my stomach felt bad, knowing I had finally ar¬
rived where my life said I belonged. But I was also determined to honor
my parents words, so Huang Taitai could never accuse my mother of
losing face. She would not win that from our family.
As I was thinking this I saw an old servant woman stooping over the
same low table gutting a fish, looking at me from the corner of her eye.
I was crying and I was afraid she would tell Huang Taitai. So I gave a
big smile and shouted, "What a lucky girl I am. I'm going to have the
best life." And in this quick-thinking way I must have waved my knife
too close to her nose because she cried angrily, "Shemma bende ren!"—
 Applying the Method for Making Decisions 101

What kind of fool are you? And I knew right away this was a warning,
because when I shouted that declaration of happiness, I almost tricked
myself into thinking it might come true.
I saw Tyan-yu at the evening meal. I was still a few inches taller than
he, but he acted like a big warlord. I knew what kind of husband he
would be, because he made special efforts to make me cry. He com¬
plained the soup was not hot enough and then spilled the bowl as if it
were an accident. He waited until I had sat down to eat and then would
demand another bowl of rice. He asked why I had such an unpleasant
face when looking at him.
Over the next few years, Huang Taitai instructed the other servants
to teach me how to sew sharp corners on pillowcases and to embroider
my future family's name. How can a wife keep her husband's house¬
hold in order if she has never dirtied her own hands, Huang Taitai used
to say as she introduced me to a new task. I don't think Huang Taitai
ever soiled her hands, but she was very good at calling out orders and
criticism.
"Teach her to wash rice properly so that the water runs clear. Her
husband cannot eat muddy rice," she'd say to a cook servant.
Another time, she told a servant to show me how to clean a chamber
pot: "Make her put her own nose to the barrel to make sure it's clean."
That was how I learned to be an obedient wife. I learned to cook so well
that I could smell if the meat stuffing was too salty before I even tasted
it. I could sew such small stitches it looked as if the embroidery had
been painted on. And even Huang Taitai complained in a pretend man¬
ner that she could scarcely throw a dirty blouse on the floor before it
was cleaned and on her back once again, causing her to wear the same
clothes every day.
After a while I didn't think it was a terrible life, no, not really. After a
while, I hurt so much I didn't feel any difference. What was happier
than seeing everybody gobble down the shiny mushrooms and bamboo
shoots I had helped to prepare that day? What was more satisfying than
having Huang Taitai nod and pat my head when I had finished comb¬
ing her hair one hundred strokes? How much happier could I be after
seeing Tyan-yu eat a whole bowl of noodles without once complaining
about its taste or my looks? It's like those ladies you see on American
TV these days, the ones who are so happy they have washed out a stain
so the clothes look better than new.
Can you see how the Huangs almost washed their thinking into my
skin? I came to think of Tyan-yu as a god, someone whose opinions
were worth much more than my own life. I came to think of Huang
Taitai as my real mother, someone I wanted to please, someone I should
follow and obey without question.
When I turned sixteen on the lunar new year, Huang Taitai told me
she was ready to welcome a grandson by next spring. Even if I had not
102 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

wanted to marry, where would I go live instead? Even though I was

strong as a horse, how could I run away? The Japanese were in every
comer of China.
* * *

"The Japanese showed up as uninvited guests," said Tyan-yu's grand¬

mother, "and that's why nobody else came." Huang Taitai had made
elaborate plans, but our wedding was very small.
40 She had asked the entire village and friends and family from other
cities as well. In those days, you didn't do RSVP. It was not polite not to
come. Huang Taitai didn't think the war would change people's good
manners. So the cook and her helpers prepared hundreds of dishes. My
family's old furniture had been shined up into an impressive dowry
and placed in the front parlor. Huang Taitai had taken care to remove
all the water and mud marks. She had even commissioned someone to
write felicitous messages on red banners, as if my parents themselves
had draped these decorations to congratulate me on my good luck. And
she had arranged to rent a red palanquin to carry me from her neigh¬
bor's house to the wedding ceremony.
A lot of bad luck fell on our wedding day, even though the match¬
maker had chosen a lucky day, the fifteenth day of the eighth moon,
when the moon is perfectly round and bigger than any other time of the
year. But the week before the moon arrived, the Japanese came. They in¬
vaded Shansi province, as well as the provinces bordering us. People
were nervous. And the morning of the fifteenth, on the day of the wed¬
ding celebration, it began to rain, a very bad sign. When the thunder
and lightning began, people confused it with Japanese bombs and
would not leave their houses.
I heard later that poor Huang Taitai waited many hours for more
people to come, and finally, when she could not wring any more guests
out of her hands, she decided to start the ceremony. What could she do?
She could not change the war.
I was at the neighbor's house. When they called me to come down
and ride the red palanquin, I was sitting at a small dressing table by an
open window. I began to cry and thought bitterly about my parents'
promise. I wondered why my destiny had been decided, why I should
have an unhappy life so someone else could have a happy one. From
my seat by the window I could see the Fen River with its muddy brown
waters. I thought about throwing my body into this river that had de¬
stroyed my family's happiness. A person has very strange thoughts
when it seems that life is about to end.
It started to rain again, just a light rain. The people from downstairs
called up to me once again to hurry. And my thoughts became more ur¬
gent, more strange.
45 I asked myself. What is true about a person? Would I change in the
same way the river changes color but still be the same person? And then
 Applying the Method for Making Decisions 103

I saw the curtains blowing wildly, and outside rain was falling harder,
causing everyone to scurry and shout. I smiled. And then I realized it
was the first time I could see the power of the wind. I couldn't see the
wmd itself, but I could see it carried the water that filled the rivers and
shaped the countryside. It caused men to yelp and dance.
I wiped my eyes and looked in the mirror. I was surprised at what I
saw. I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valu¬
able. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one
could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the
wind.
I threw my head back and smiled proudly to myself. And then I
draped the large embroidered red scarf over my face and covered these
thoughts up. But underneath the scarf I still knew who I was. I made a
promise to myself: I would always remember my parents' wishes, but I
would never forget myself.
When I arrived at the wedding, I had the red scarf over my face and
couldn't see anything in front of me. But when I bent my head forward,
I could see out the sides. Very few people had come. I saw the Huangs,
the same old complaining relatives now embarrassed by this poor
showing, the entertainers with their violins and flutes. And there were
a few village people who had been brave enough to come out for a free
meal. I even saw servants and their children, who must have been
added to make the party look bigger.
Someone took my hands and guided me down a path. I was like a
blind person walking to my fate. But I was no longer scared. I could see
what was inside me.
A high official conducted the ceremony and he talked too long about
philosophers and models of virtue. Then I heard the matchmaker speak
about our birthdates and harmony and fertility. I tipped my veiled head
forward and I could see her hands unfolding a red silk scarf and hold¬
ing up a red candle for everyone to see.
The candle had two ends for lighting. One length had carved gold
characters with Tyan-yu's name, the other with mine. The matchmaker
lighted both ends and announced, "The marriage has begun." Tyan-yu
yanked the scarf off my face and smiled at his friends and family, never
even looking at me. He reminded me of a young peacock I once saw that
acted as if he had just claimed the entire courtyard by fanning his still-
short tail.
I saw the matchmaker place the lighted red candle in a gold holder
and then hand it to a nervous-looking servant. This servant was sup¬
posed to watch the candle during the banquet and all night to make
sure neither end went out. In the morning the matchmaker was sup¬
posed to show the result, a little piece of black ash, and then declare,
"This candle burned continuously at both ends without going out. This
is a marriage that can never be broken."
104 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

I still can remember. That candle was a marriage bond that was
worth more than a Catholic promise not to divorce. It meant I couldn't
divorce and I couldn't ever remarry, even if Tyan-yu died. That red can¬
dle was supposed to seal me forever with my husband and his family,
no excuses afterward.
55 And sure enough, the matchmaker made her declaration the next
morning and showed she had done her job. But I know what really hap¬
pened, because I stayed up all night crying about my marriage.
* * *

After the banquet, our small wedding party pushed us and half carried
us up to the third floor to our small bedroom. People were shouting
jokes and pulling boys from underneath the bed. The matchmaker
helped small children pull red eggs that had been hidden between the
blankets. The boys who were about Tyan-yu's age made us sit on the
bed side by side and everybody made us kiss so our faces would turn
red with passion. Firecrackers exploded on the walkway outside our
open window and someone said that this was a good excuse for me to
jump into my husband's arms.
After everyone left, we sat there side by side without words for many
minutes, still listening to the laughing outside. When it grew quiet,
Tyan-yu said, "This is my bed. You sleep on the sofa." He threw a pil¬
low and a thin blanket to me. I was so glad! I waited until he fell asleep
and then I got up quietly and went outside, down the stairs and into the
dark courtyard.
Outside it smelled as if it would soon rain again. I was crying, walk¬
ing in my bare feet and feeling the wet heat still inside the bricks. Across
the courtyard I could see the matchmaker's servant through a yellow-
lit open window. She was sitting at a table, looking very sleepy as the
red candle burned in its special gold holder. I sat down by a tree to
watch my fate being decided for me.
I must have fallen asleep because I remember being startled awake
by the sound of loud cracking thunder. That's when I saw the match¬
maker's servant running from the room, scared as a chicken about to
lose its head. Oh, she was asleep too, I thought, and now she thinks it's
the Japanese. I laughed. The whole sky became light and then more
thunder came, and she ran out of the courtyard and down the road, go¬
ing so fast and hard I could see pebbles kicking up behind her. Where
does she think she's running to, I wondered, still laughing. And then I
saw the red candle flickering just a little with the breeze.
60 I was not thinking when my legs lifted me up and my feet ran me
across the courtyard to the yellow-lit room. But I was hoping—I was
praying to Buddha, the goddess of mercy, and the full moon—to make
that candle go out. It fluttered a little and the flame bent down low, but
still both ends burned strong. My throat filled with so much hope that
it finally burst and blew out my husband's end of the candle.
 Applying the Method for Making Decisions 105

I immediately shivered with fear. I thought a knife would appear and

cut me down dead. Or the sky would open up and blow me away. But
nothing happened, and when my senses came back, I walked back to
my room with fast guilty steps.
The next morning the matchmaker made her proud declaration in
front of Tyan-yu, his parents, and myself. "My job is done," she an¬
nounced, pouring the remaining black ash onto the red cloth. I saw her
servant's shame-faced, mournful look.
* * *

I learned to love Tyan-yu, but it is not how you think. From the begin-
ning/1 would always become sick thinking he would someday climb on
top of me and do his business. Every time I went into our bedroom, my
hair would already be standing up. But during the first months, he
never touched me. He slept in his bed, I slept on my sofa.
In front of his parents, I was an obedient wife, just as they taught me.
I instructed the cook to kill a fresh young chicken every morning and
cook it until pure juice came out. I would strain this juice myself into a
bowl, never adding any water. I gave this to him for breakfast, mur¬
muring good wishes about his health. And every night I would cook a
special tonic soup called tounau, which was not only very delicious but
has eight ingredients that guarantee long life for mothers. This pleased
my mother-in-law very much.
But it was not enough to keep her happy. One morning, Huang Taitai
and I were sitting in the same room, working on our embroidery. I was
dreaming about my childhood, about a pet frog I once kept named Big
Wind. Huang Taitai seemed restless, as if she had an itch in the bottom
of her shoe. I heard her huffing and then all of a sudden she stood up
from her chair, walked over to me, and slapped my face.
"Bad wife!" she cried. "If you refuse to sleep with my son, I refuse to
feed you or clothe you." So that's how I knew what my husband had
said to avoid his mother's anger. I was also boiling with anger, but I said
nothing, remembering my promise to my parents to be an obedient
wife.
That night I sat on Tyan-yu's bed and waited for him to touch me. But
he didn't. I was relieved. The next night, I lay straight down on the bed
next to him. And still he didn't touch me. So the next night, I took off
my gown.
That's when I could see what was underneath Tyan-yu. He was
scared and turned his face. He had no desire for me, but it was his fear
that made me think he had no desire for any woman. He was like a lit¬
tle boy who had never grown up. After a while I was no longer afraid.
I even began to think differently toward Tyan-yu. It was not like the
way a wife loves a husband, but more like the way a sister protects
a younger brother. I put my gown back on and lay down next to him
and rubbed his back. I knew I no longer had to be afraid. I was sleeping
106 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

with Tyan-yu. He would never touch me and I had a comfortable bed to

sleep on.
After more months had passed and my stomach and breasts re¬
mained small and flat, Huang Taitai flew into another kind of rage. "My
son says he's planted enough seeds for thousands of grandchildren.
Where are they? It must be you are doing something wrong." And after
that she confined me to the bed so that her grandchildren's seeds would
not spill out so easily.
70 Oh, you think it is so much fun to lie in bed all day, never getting up.
But I tell you it was worse than a prison. I think Huang Taitai became a
little crazy.
She told the servants to take all sharp things out of the room, think¬
ing scissors and knives were cutting off her next generation. She for¬
bade me from sewing. She said I must concentrate and think of nothing
but having babies. And four times a day, a very nice servant girl would
come into my room, apologizing the whole time while making me drink
a terrible-tasting medicine.
I envied this girl, the way she could walk out the door. Sometimes as
I watched her from my window, I would imagine I was that girl, stand¬
ing in the courtyard, bargaining with the traveling shoe mender, gos-
siping with other servant girls, scolding a handsome delivery man in
her high teasing voice.
One day, after two months had gone by without any results, Huang
Taitai called the old matchmaker to the house. The matchmaker exam¬
ined me closely, looked up my birthdate and the hour of my birth,
and then asked Huang Taitai about my nature. Finally, the matchmaker
gave her conclusions: "It's clear what has happened. A woman can have
sons only if she is deficient in one of the elements. Your daughter-inlaw
was bom with enough wood, fire, water, and earth, and she was de¬
ficient in metal, which was a good sign. But when she was married, you
loaded her down with gold bracelets and decorations and now she has
all the elements, including metal. She's too balanced to have babies."
This turned out to be joyous news for Huang Taitai, for she liked
nothing better than to reclaim all her gold and jewelry to help me be¬
come fertile. And it was good news for me too. Because after the gold
was removed from my body, I felt lighter, more free. They say this is
what happens if you lack metal. You begin to think as an independent
person. That day I started to think about how I would escape this mar¬
riage without breaking my promise to my family.
75 It was really quite simple. I made the Huangs think it was their idea
to get rid of me, that they would be the ones to say the marriage con¬
tract was not valid.
I thought about my plan for many days. I observed everyone around
me, the thoughts they showed in their faces, and then I was ready. I
chose an auspicious day, the third day of the third month. That's the day
of the Festival of Pure Brightness. On this day, your thoughts must be
 Applying the Method for Making Decisions 107

clear as you prepare to think about your ancestors. That's the day when
everyone goes to the family graves. They bring hoes to clear the weeds
and brooms to sweep the stones and they offer dumplings and oranges
as spiritual food. Oh, it's not a somber day, more like a picnic, but it has
special meaning to someone looking for grandsons.
On the morning of that day, I woke up Tyan-yu and the entire house
with my wailing. It took Huang Taitai a long time to come into my
room. What s wrong with her now," she cried from her room. "Go
make her be quiet. But finally, after my wailing didn't stop, she rushed
into my room, scolding me at the top of her voice.
I was clutching my mouth with one hand and my eyes with another.
My body was writhing as if I were seized by a terrible pain. I was quite
convincing, because Huang Taitai drew back and grew small like a
scared animal.
"What's wrong, little daughter? Tell me quickly," she cried.
"Oh, it's too terrible to think, too terrible to say," I said between gasps
and more wailing.
After enough wailing, I said what was so unthinkable. "I had a
dream," I reported. "Our ancestors came to me and said they wanted to
see our wedding. So Tyan-yu and I held the same ceremony for our an¬
cestors. We saw the matchmaker light the candle and give it to the ser¬
vant to watch. Our ancestors were so pleased, so pleased ..."
Huang Taitai looked impatient as I began to cry softly again. "But
then the servant left the room with our candle and a big wind came and
blew the candle out. And our ancestors became very angry. They
shouted that the marriage was doomed! They said that Tyan-yu's end
of the candle had blown out! Our ancestors said Tyan-yu would die if
he stayed in this marriage!"
Tyan-yu's face turned white. But Huang Taitai only frowned. "What
a stupid girl to have such bad dreams!" And then she scolded
everybody to go back to bed.
"Mother," I called to her in a hoarse whisper. "Please don't leave me!
I am afraid! Our ancestors said if the matter is not settled, they would
begin the cycle of destruction."
"What is this nonsense!" cried Huang Taitai, turning back to¬
ward me. Tyan-yu followed her, wearing his mother's same frown¬
ing face. And I knew they were almost caught, two ducks leaning into
the pot.
"They knew you would not believe me," I said in a remorseful tone,
"because they know I do not want to leave the comforts of my marriage.
So our ancestors said they would plant the signs, to show our marriage
is now rotting."
"What nonsense from your stupid head," said Huang Taitai, sighing.
But she could not resist. "What signs?"
"In my dream, I saw a man with a long beard and a mole on his
cheek." '
Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

"Tyan-yu's grandfather?" asked Huang Taitai. I nodded, remember¬

ing the painting I had observed on the wall.
"He said there are three signs. First, he has drawn a black spot on
Tyan-yu's back, and this spot will grow and eat away Tyan-yu's flesh
just as it ate away our ancestor's face before he died."
Huang Taitai quickly turned to Tyan-yu and pulled his shirt up. "Ai-
ya!" She cried, because there it was, the same black mole, the size of a
fingertip, just as I had always seen in these past five months of sleeping
as sister and brother.
"And then our ancestor touched my mouth," and I patted my cheek
as if it already hurt. "He said my teeth would start to fall out one by one,
until I could no longer protest leaving this marriage."
Huang Taitai pried open my mouth and gasped upon seeing the
open spot in the back of my mouth where a rotted tooth fell out four
years ago.
"And finally, I saw him plant a seed in a servant girl's womb. He said
this girl only pretends to come from a bad family. But she is really from
imperial blood, and ..."
I lay my head down on the pillow as if too tired to go on. Huang
Taitai pushed my shoulder, "What does he say?"
"He said the servant girl is Tyan-yu's true spiritual wife. And the
seed he has planted will grow into Tyan-yu's child."
By mid-morning they had dragged the matchmaker's servant over to
our house and extracted her terrible confession.
And after much searching they found the servant girl I liked so
much, the one I had watched from my window every day. I had seen her
eyes grow bigger and her teasing voice become smaller whenever the
handsome delivery man arrived. And later, I had watched her stomach
grow rounder and her face become longer with fear and worry.
So you can imagine how happy she was when they forced her to tell
the truth about her imperial ancestry. I heard later she was so struck
with this miracle of marrying Tyan-yu she became a very religious per¬
son who ordered servants to sweep the ancestors' graves not just once
a year, but once a day.
* * *

There's no more to the story. They didn't blame me so much. Huang

Taitai got her grandson. I got my clothes, a rail ticket to Peking, and
enough money to go to America. The Huangs asked only that I never tell
anybody of any importance about the story of my doomed marriage.
It's a true story, how I kept my promise, how I sacrificed my life. See
the gold metal I can now wear. I gave birth to your brothers and then
your father gave me these two bracelets. Then I had you. And every few
years, when I have a little extra money, I buy another bracelet. I know
what I'm worth. They're always twenty-four carats, all genuine.
But I'll never forget. On the day of the Festival of Pure Brightness, I
take off all my bracelets. I remember when I finally knew a genuine
 Applying the Method for Making Decisions 109

thought and could follow it where it went. It was the day I was a young
girl with my face under a red marriage scarf. I promised not to forget
myself.
How nice it is to be that girl again, to take off my scarf, to see what is
underneath and feel the lightness come back into my body!

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 4.2

Analyzing Undo Jong’s Decision

Usins the five steps for decision making, write an analysis of Lindo Jong’s de¬
cision concerning the solution to her unhappy marriage. Do you think she has
been satisfied with the results of her decision?

Now try to apply these same steps to a decision in your own life.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 4.3

Analyzing a Future Decision

1. Make a list of whatever important decisions in your academic or personal
life you have to make now or will have to make in the near future.
2. Use the format given on page 95 to begin analyzing one of the decisions you
have just listed.

There are no guarantees in life. Our decisions may or may not turn out
well. Still, following an organized method for making decisions can at least
assure us of having used our creative thinking ability to generate many pos¬
sible choices and our critical thinking ability to evaluate the choices and
choose one that seemed to best meet our needs. In other words, we will know
that we made the best decision that we could have, at the time. And we can
be reasonably hopeful that in years to come, we will look back with the same
attitude expressed by Robert Frost in the following poem.

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
110 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

Then took the other, as just as fair.

And having perhaps the better claim.
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
10 Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
is I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
20 And that has made all the difference.

Making Decisions When Revising Drafts

Revising your writing is the key to producing your best possible work. It is
very rare for a first draft to represent the most effective writing of which a
writer is capable. Most accomplished writers expect their work to undergo a
number of revisions, based on their own re-evaluation of it and on feedback
from others. The difference between outstanding and mediocre writing often
depends on revision.
Revising your writing involves making a series of decisions in response
to questions that you might want to picture as a revision template—a tem¬
plate that you place over your work for help with refining it. Notice how
some of the concepts in the Method for Making Decisions, page 95, can be
applied to revising your drafts.

■ You define the decision by identifying what in a draft needs to be revised

and what should be left as it is.
■ You consider possible choices for improving a draft, especially with major
components such as composing and placing the thesis statement, pre¬
senting evidence, and arranging material in sequences or sections or
paragraphs. You also often have several possible choices among sen¬
tence patterns and words when you work at the editing level of revision.
■ You gather relevant information and evaluate the different choices so that
you can select what best meets the need of the writing situation. Some¬
times you may actually write down the different possibilities; in other
instances, you may just try them out in your mind.
■ After implementing your choices by revising a draft, you evalute your
writing by reading it again, slowly and completely, to be sure that the
whole piece is as good as you can make it.
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 111

■ Collaborating with classmates or other trusted readers in all these deci¬

sions about your drafts will usually be very helpful. Other readers can
see your drafts more objectively and help you "re-see" and revise them.
A* •

Specific Choices at Several Levels

While effective writers revise all kinds of drafts, much of what is said in
Chapter 1, in this chapter, and in the Writing Projects pertains to drafts that
are in a close-to-finished stage, that have moved beyond discovery writing to
an organized version. Such drafts may not need many changes, or they may
require major reworking. The following suggestions should help you im¬
prove your almost-finished drafts.
Read your entire draft slowly and carefully. You may find, as many writ¬
ers do, that reading out loud helps you to locate parts that don't sound right.
Also, ask someone whose judgment you trust to read the draft and help you
to decide what improvement is needed. If your class allows peer review, be
prepared for this opportunity by having a completed draft ready.
If you decide that improvement is required, the need for a decision im¬
mediately presents itself. At what level should you begin in make changes?
Some people think that revision means making corrections in grammar,
punctuation, and spelling. Revision can indeed include those corrections, but
it usually means much more. In fact, those corrections are often identified
separately, as editing and proofreading, to distinguish them from larger as¬
pects of revision.
A helpful way to decide where to begin revising is to move through the
following hierarchy of concerns and questions about your draft. If you find
yourself answering any of the questions in a way that suggests ways to im¬
prove your writing, stop and try to make changes or additions to your draft
before you move on to the next level. There is no point in worrying about
punctuation if your draft lacks focus or good examples.
However, you must remember that revision, like all activities in a writing
process, is recursive. You may see content, organization, or wording problems
while you are checking punctuation; you may fix a typo while you're reword¬
ing the thesis statement. The hierarchy that follows emphasizes the importance
of looking first at major concerns, but you should be prepared to move around
among the levels of attention as you make your decisions about a draft.

1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.

■ Does it fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Does it have a focus?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ How about organization and logical order of ideas?
■ Do you provide enough evidence to accomplish your purpose?
112 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

m Is your point of view consistent?

■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs and throughout
the whole piece?

2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.

■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
■ Is it appropriate for the rest of the draft—that is, does the tone of the in¬
troduction match the tone of the rest of the draft?
■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a 'Visible" structure?
■ If you are working with an "invisible structure," is your focus clearly
implied?
Then look at each of your body paragraphs.
■ Does each support the thesis?
■ Does each present relevant, specific evidence not presented elsewhere?
■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
■ Do paragraphs without topic sentences need them?
■ Are there transitions between paragraphs and within them?
Look at your conclusion. It is your last chance to accomplish your
purpose.
■ Does your conclusion provide a satisfying ending?
■ Is it appropriate in tone?
■ Is there any way that you can make it more effective?

3. Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.

■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
■ Are there several short, choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Do any sentences strike you as vague?
■ Do any sentences have errors in standard English grammar or usage?

4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.

■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are any words spelled incorrectly?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
■ Will the finished paper make a good impression by being neat?
■ Is there anything else you can do to improve your draft?
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 113

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 4.4

Previous Revision Experiences

Write about your past experiences with revision. Use the precedins four-level
hierarchy of concerns and questions for help. Which of these questions have
you regularly been concerned about? Which, if any, are new to you? Which
strike you as especially important, and why?

Beyond considering your own earlier experiences, you can deepen your
understanding of revision by reading the following selections by three ex¬
pert writers. After thinking about their ideas, answer the questions in
Thinkingv>Writing Activity 4.5.

from The Maker's Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts

by Donald M. Murray

When students complete a first draft, they consider the job of writing
done—and their teachers too often agree. When professional writers
complete a first draft, they usually feel that they are at the start of the
writing process. When a draft is completed, the job of writing can begin.
That difference in attitude is the difference between amateur and
professional, inexperience and experience, journeyman and craftsman.
Peter F. Drucker, the prolific business writer, calls his first draft "the
zero draft"—after that he can start counting. Most writers share the feel¬
ing that the first draft, and all of those which follow, are opportunities
to discover what they have to say and how best they can say it.
To produce a progression of drafts, each of which says more and says
it more clearly, the writer has to develop a special kind of reading skill.
In school we are taught to decode what appears on the page as finished
writing. Writers, however, face a different category of possibility and re¬
sponsibility when they read their own drafts. To them the words on the
page are never finished. Each can be changed and rearranged, can set off
a chain reaction of confusion or clarified meaning. This is a different kind
of reading, which is possibly more difficult and certainly more exciting.
Writers must learn to be their own best enemy. They must accept the
criticism of others and be suspicious of it; they must accept the praise of
others and be even more suspicious of it. Writers cannot depend on oth¬
ers. They must detach themselves from their own pages so that they can
apply both their caring and their craft to their own work.
Such detachment is not easy. Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury
supposedly puts each manuscript away for a year to the day and then
rereads it as a stranger. Not many writers have the discipline or the time
114 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

to do this. We must read when our judgment may be at its worst, when
we are close to the euphoric moment of creation.
Then the writer, counsels novelist Nancy Hale, "should be critical of
everything that seems to him most delightful in his style. He should ex¬
cise what he most admires, because he wouldn't thus admire it if he
weren't... in a sense protecting it from criticism." John Ciardi, the
poet, adds, "The last act of writing must be to become one's own reader.
It is, I suppose, a schizophrenic process, to begin passionately and to
end critically, to begin hot and to end cold; and, more important, to be
passion-hot and critic-cold at the same time."
Most people think that the principal problem is that writers are too
proud of what they have written. Actually, a greater problem for most
professional writers is one shared by the majority of students. They are
overly critical, think everything is dreadful, tear up page after page,
never complete a draft, see the task as hopeless.
The writer must learn to read critically but constructively, to cut what
is bad, to reveal what is good. Eleanor Estes, the children's book author,
explains: "The writer must survey his work critically, coolly, as though
he were a stranger to it. He must be willing to prune, expertly and hard-
heartedly. At the end of each revision, a manuscript may look...
worked over, tom apart, pinned together, added to, deleted from,
words changed and words changed back. Yet the book must maintain
its original freshness and spontaneity."
Most readers underestimate the amount of rewriting it usually takes to
produce spontaneous reading. This is a great disadvantage to the student
writer, who sees only a finished product and never watches the craftsman
who takes the necessary steps back, studies the work carefully, returns to
the task, steps back, returns, steps back, again and again. Anthony
Burgess, one of the most prolific writers in the English-speaking world,
admits, "I might revise a page twenty times." Roald Dahl, the popular
children's writer, states, "By the time I'm nearing the end of a story, the
first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least 150
times-Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am positive of this."
10 Rewriting isn't virtuous. It isn't something that ought to be done. It is
simply something that most writers find they have to do to discover what
they have to say and how to say it. It is a condition of the writer's life.
There are, however, a few writers who do little formal rewriting, pri¬
marily because they have the capacity and experience to create and re¬
view a large number of invisible drafts in their minds before they
approach the page. And some writers slowly produce finished pages,
performing all the tasks of revision simultaneously, page by page,
rather than draft by draft. But it is still possible to see the sequence fol¬
lowed by most writers most of the time in rereading their own work.
Most writers scan their drafts first, reading as quickly as possible to
catch the larger problems of subject and form, then move in closer and
closer as they read and write, reread and rewrite.
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 115

The first thing writers look for in their drafts is information. They
know that a good piece of writing is built from specific, accurate, and
interesting information. The writer must have an abundance of infor¬
mation from which to construct a readable piece of writing.
Next, writers look for meaning in the information. The specifics must
build a pattern of significance. Each piece of specific information must
carry the reader toward meaning.
Writers reading their own drafts are aware of audience. They put
themselves in the reader's situation and make sure that they deliver in¬
formation which a reader wants to know or needs to know in a manner
which is easily digested. Writers try to be sure that they anticipate and
answer the questions a critical reader will ask when reading the piece of
writing.
Writers make sure that the form is appropri ate to the subject and the
audience. Form, or genre, is the vehicle which carries meaning to the
reader, but form cannot be selected until the writer has adequate infor¬
mation to discover its significance and an audience which needs or
wants that meaning.
Once writers are sure the form is appropriate, they must then look at
the structure, the order of what they have written. Good writing is built
on a solid framework of logic, argument, narrative, or motivation
which runs through the entire piece of writing and holds it together.
This is the time when many writers find it most effective to outline as a
way of visualizing the hidden spine by which the piece of writing is
supported.
The element on which writers may spend a majority of their time is
development. Each section of a piece of writing must be adequately de¬
veloped. It must give readers enough information so that they are sat¬
isfied. How much information is enough? That's as difficult as asking
how much garlic belongs in a salad. It must be done to taste, but most
beginning writers underdevelop, underestimating the reader's hunger
for information.
As writers solve development problems, they often have to consider
questions of dimension. There must be a pleasing and effective propor¬
tion among all the parts of the piece of writing. There is a continual
process of subtracting and adding to keep the piece of writing in balance.
Finally, writers have to listen to their own voices. Voice is the force
which drives a piece of writing forward. It is an expression of the
writer's authority and concern. It is what is between the words on the
page, what glues the piece of writing together. A good piece of writing is
always marked by a consistent, individual voice.
As writers read and reread, write and rewrite, they move closer and
closer to the page until they are doing line-by-line editing. Writers read
their own pages with infinite care. Each sentence, each line, each clause,
each phrase, each word, each mark of punctuation, each section of white
space between the type has to contribute to the clarification of meaning.
116 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

Slowly the writer moves from word to word, looking through lan¬
guage to see the subject. As a word is changed, cut, or added, as a con¬
struction is rearranged, all the words used before that moment and all
those that follow that moment must be considered and reconsidered.
Writers often read aloud at this stage of the editing process, mutter¬
ing or whispering to themselves, calling on the ear's experience with
language. Does this sound right—or that? Writers edit, shifting back
and forth from eye to page to ear to page. I find I must do this careful
editing in short runs, no more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a
stretch, or I become too kind with myself. I begin to see what I hope is
on the page, not what actually is on the page.
This sounds tedious if you haven't done it, but actually it is fun.
Making something right is immensely satisfying, for writers begin to
learn what they are writing about by writing. Language leads them to
meaning, and there is the joy of discovery, of understanding, of making
meaning clear as the writer employs the technical skills of language.
25 Words have double meaning, even triple and quadruple meanings.
Each word has its own potential for connotation and denotation. And
when writers rub one word against the other, they are often rewarded
with a sudden insight, an unexpected clarification.
The maker's eye moves back and forth from word to phrase to sen¬
tence to paragraph to sentence to phrase to word. The maker's eye sees
the need for variety and balance, for a firmer structure, for a more ap¬
propriate form. It peers into the interior of the paragraph, looking for
coherence, unity, and emphasis, which make meaning clear.
I learned something about this process when my first bifocals were
prescribed. I had ordered a large section of the reading portion of the
glass because of my work, but even so, I could not contain my eyes
within this new limit of vision. And I still find myself taking off my
glasses and bending my nose towards the page, for my eyes uncon¬
sciously flick back and forth across the page, back to another page, for¬
ward to still another, as I try to see each evolving line in relation to every
other line.
When does this process end? Most writers agree with the great Rus¬
sian writer Tolstoy, who said, "I scarcely ever reread my published writ¬
ings, if by chance I come across a page, it always strikes me: all this must
be rewritten; this is how I should have written it."
The maker's eye is never satisfied, for each word has the potential to
ignite new meaning. This article has been twice written all the way
through the writing process, and it was published four years ago. Now
it is to be republished in a book. The editors make a few small sugges¬
tions, and then I read it with my maker's eye. Now it has been re-edited,
re-vised, re-read, re-re-edited, for each piece of writing to the writer is
full of potential and alternatives.
30 A piece of writing is never finished. It is delivered to a deadline, torn
out of the typewriter on demand, sent off with a sense of accomplish-
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 117

merit and shame and pride and frustration. If only there were a couple
more days, time for just another run at it, perhaps then ...

from Writing with a Word Processor

by William Zinsser

Writing is a deeply personal process, full of mystery and surprise. No

two people go about it in exactly the same way. We all have little devices
to get us started, or to keep us going, or to remind us of what we think
we want to say, and what works for one person may not work for
anyone else. The main thing is to get something written—to get the
words out of our heads. There is no "right" method. Any method that
will do the job is the right method for you.
It helps to remember that writing is hard. Most non-writers don't
know this; they think that writing is a natural function, like breathing,
that ought to come easy, and they're puzzled when it doesn't. If you
find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest
things that people do. Among other reasons, it's hard because it re¬
quires thinking. You won't write clearly unless you keep forcing your¬
self to think clearly. There's no escaping the question that has to be
constantly asked: What do I want to say next?
So painful is this task that writers go to remarkable lengths to post¬
pone their daily labor. They sharpen their pencils and change their
typewriter ribbon and go out to the store to buy more paper. Now these
sacred rituals, as IBM would say, have been obsoleted.
When I began writing this article on my word processor I didn't have
any idea what would happen. Would I be able to write anything at all?
Would it be any good? I was bringing to the machine what I assumed
were wholly different ways of thinking about writing. The units massed
in front of me looked cold and sterile. Their steady hum reminded me
that they were waiting. They seemed to be waiting for information, not
for writing. Maybe what I wrote would also be cold and sterile.
I was particularly worried about the absence of paper. I knew that I
would only be able to see as many lines as the screen would hold—
twenty lines. How could I review what I had already written? How
could I get a sense of continuity and flow? With paper it was always
possible to flick through the preceding pages to see where I was coming
from—and where I ought to be going. Without paper I would have no
such periodic fix. Would this be a major hardship?
The only way to find out was to find out. I took a last look at my un¬
sharpened pencils and went to work.
My particular hang-up as a writer is that I have to get every para¬
graph as nearly right as possible before I go on to the next paragraph.
I'm somewhat like a bricklayer: I build very slowly, not adding a new
118 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

row until I feel that the foundation is solid enough to hold up the house.
I'm the exact opposite of the writer who dashes off his entire first draft,
not caring how sloppy it looks or how badly it's written. His only ob¬
jective at this early stage is to let his creative motor rim the full course
at full speed; repairs can always be made later. I envy this writer and
would like to have his metabolism. But I'm stuck with the one I've got.
I also care how my writing looks while I'm writing it. The visual
arrangement is important to me: the shape of the words, of the sen¬
tences, of the paragraphs, of the page. I don't like sentences that are
dense with long words, or paragraphs that never end. As I write I want
to see the design that my piece will have when the readers see it in type,
and I want that design to have a rhythm and a pace that will invite the
reader to keep reading. O.K., so I'm a nut. But I'm not alone; the visual
component is important to a large number of people who write.
One hang-up we visual people share is that our copy must be neat.
My lifelong writing method, for instance, has gone like this. I put a
piece of paper in the typewriter and write the first paragraph. Then I
take the paper out and edit what I've written. I mark it up horribly,
crossing words out and scribbling new ones in the space between the
lines. By this time the paragraph has lost its nature and shape for me as
a piece of writing. It's a mishmash of typing and handwriting and ar¬
rows and balloons and other directional symbols. So I type a clean copy,
incorporating the changes, and then I take that piece of paper out of the
typewriter and edit it. It's better, but not much better. I go over it with
my pencil again, making more changes, which again make it too messy
for me to read critically, so I go back to the typewriter for round three.
And round four. Not until I'm reasonably satisfied do I proceed to the
next paragraph.
10 This can get pretty tedious, and I have often thought that there must
be a better way. Now there is. The word processor is God's gift, or at
least science's gift, to the tinkerers and the refiners and the neatness
freaks. For me it was obviously the perfect new toy. I began playing on
page 1 editing, cutting and revising—and have been on a rewriting
high ever since. The burden of the years has been lifted.
Mostly I've been cutting. I would guess that I've cut at least as many
words out of this article as the number that remain. Probably half of those
words were eliminated because I saw that they were unnecessary—the
sentence worked fine without them. This is where the word processor can
improve your writing to an extent that you will hardly believe. Learn to
recognize what is clutter and to use the DELETE key to prune it out.
How will you know clutter when you see it? Here's a device I used
when I was teaching writing at Yale that my students found helpful; it
may be a help here. I would put brackets around every component in a
student s paper that I didn t think was doing some kind of work. Often
it was only one word—for example, the useless preposition that gets ap¬
pended to so many verbs (order up, free up), or the adverb whose
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 119

meaning is already in the verb (blare loudly clench tightly), or the ad¬
jective that tells us what we already know (smooth marble, green grass).
The brackets might surround the little qualifiers that dilute a writer's
authority (a bit, sort of, in a sense), or the countless phrases in which the
writer explains what he is about to explain (it might be pointed out, I'm
tempted to say). Often my brackets would surround an entire sen¬
tence the sentence that essentially repeats what the previous sentence
has said, or tells the reader something that is implicit, or adds a detail
that is irrelevant. Most people's writing is littered with phrases that do
no new work whatever. Most first drafts, in fact, can be cut by fifty per¬
cent without losing anything organic. (Try it; it's a good exercise.)
By bracketing these extra words, instead of crossing them out, I was
saying to the student: "I may be wrong, but I think this can go and the
meaning of the sentence won't be affected in any way. But you decide:
Read the sentence without the bracketed material and see if it works."
In the first half of the term, the students' papers were festooned with my
brackets. Whole paragraphs got bracketed. But gradually the students
learned to put mental brackets around their many different kinds of
clutter, and by the end of the term I was returning papers to them that
had hardly any brackets, or none. It was always a satisfying moment.
Today many of those students are professional writers. "I still see your
brackets," they tell me. "They're following me through life."
You can develop the same eye. Writing is clear and strong to the ex¬
tent that it has no superfluous parts. (So is art and music and dance and
typography and design.) You will really enjoy writing on a word
processor when you see your sentences growing in strength, literally
before your eyes, as you get rid of the fat. Be thankful for everything
that you can throw away.
I was struck by how many phrases and sentences I wrote in this arti¬
cle that I later found I didn't need. Many of them hammered home a
point that didn't need hammering because it had already been made.
This kind of overwriting happens in almost everybody's first draft, and
it's perfectly natural—the act of putting down our thoughts makes us
garrulous. Luckily, the act of editing follows the act of writing, and this
is where the word processor will bail you out. It intercedes at the point
where the game can be won or lost. With its help I cut hundreds of un¬
necessary words and didn't replace them.
Hundreds of others were discarded because I later thought of a bet¬
ter word—one that caught more precisely or more vividly what I was
trying to express. Here, again, a word processor encourages you to play.
The English language is rich in words that convey an exact shade of
meaning. Don't get stuck with a word that's merely good if you can find
one that takes the reader by surprise with its color or aptness or quirk¬
iness. Root around in your dictionary of synonyms and find words that
are fresh. Throw them up on the screen and see how they look.
Also learn to play with whole sentences. If a sentence strikes you as
120 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

awkward or ponderous, move your cursor to the space after the period
and write a new sentence that you think is better. Maybe you can make
it shorter. Or clearer. Maybe you can make it livelier by turning it into a
question or otherwise altering its rhythm. Change the passive verbs
into active verbs. (Passive verbs are the death of clarity and vigor.) Try
writing two or three new versions of the awkward sentence and then
compare them, or write a fourth version that combines the best ele¬
ments of all three. Sentences come in an infinite variety of shapes and
sizes. Find one that pleases you. If it's clear, and if it pleases you and ex¬
presses who you are, trust it to please other people. Then delete all the
versions that aren't as good. Your shiny new sentence will jump into po¬
sition, and the rest of the paragraph will rearrange itself as quickly and
neatly as if you had never pulled it apart.
Another goal that the word processor will help you to achieve is
unity. No matter how carefully you write each sentence as you assem¬
ble a piece of writing, the final product is bound to have some ragged
edges. Is the tone consistent throughout? And the point of view? And
the pronoun? And the tense? How about the transitions? Do they pull
the reader along, or is the piece jerky and disjointed? A good piece of
writing should be harmonious from beginning to end in the voice of the
writer and the flow of its logic. But the harmony usually requires some
last-minute patching.
I've been writing a book by the bricklayer method, slowly and care¬
fully. That s all very well as far as it goes—at the end of every chapter
the individual bricks may look fine. But what about the wall? The only
way to check your piece for unity is to go over it one more time from
start to finish, preferably reading it aloud. See if you have executed all
the decisions that you made before you started writing.
2o One such decision is in the area of tone. I decided, for instance, that I
didn't want my book to be a technical manual. I'm not a technician; I'm
a writer and an editor. The book wouldn't work if I expected the reader
to identify with the process of mastering a new technology He would
have to identify with me. The book would be first of all a personal jour¬
ney and only parenthetically a manual. I knew that this was a hybrid
form and that its unities would never be wholly intact. Still, in going
over each finished chapter I found places where the balance could be
improved—where instructional detail smothered the writer and his
narrative, or, conversely, where the writer intruded on the procedures
he was trying to explain. With a word processor it was easy to make
small repairs—perhaps just a change of pronoun and verb—that made
the balance less uneven.
The instructional portions of the book posed a problem of their own_
one that I had never faced before. My hope was to try to explain a tech¬
nical process without the help of any diagrams or drawings. Would this
be possible? It would be possible only if I kept remembering one funda¬
mental fact, (published) Writing is linear and sequential. This may seem
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 121

so obvious as to be insulting: Everybody knows that (published) writing

is linear and sequential. Actually everybody doesn't know. Most people
under thirty don't know. They have been reared since early childhood
on television—a kaleidoscope of visual images flashed onto their
brain and it doesn't occur to them that sentence B must follow sentence
A, and that sentence C must follow sentence B, or all the elegant sen¬
tences in the world won't add up to anything but confusion.
I mention this because word processors are going to be widely used
by people who need to impart technical information: matters of operat¬
ing procedure in business and banking, science and technology, medi¬
cine and health, education and government, and dozens of other
specialized fields. The information will only be helpful if readers can
grasp it quickly and easily. If it's muddy they will get discouraged or
angry, or both, and will stop reading.
You can avoid this dreaded fate for your message, whatever it is, by
making sure that every sentence is a logical sequel to the one that pre¬
ceded it. One way to approach this goal is to keep your sentences short.
A major reason why technical prose becomes so tangled is that the
writer tries to make one sentence do too many jobs. It's a natural haz¬
ard of the first draft. But the solution is simple: See that every sentence
contains only one thought. The reader can accommodate only one idea
at a time. Help him by giving him only one idea at a time. Let him un¬
derstand A before you proceed to B.
In writing this article, I was eager to explain the procedures that I had
learned, and I would frequently lump several points together in one
sentence. Later, editing what I had written, I asked myself if the proce¬
dure would be clear to someone who was puzzling through it for the
first time—someone who hadn't struggled to figure the procedure out.
Often I felt that it wouldn't be clear. I was giving the reader too much.
He was being asked to picture himself taking various steps that were
single and sequential, and that's how he deserved to get them.
I therefore divided all troublesome long sentences into two short sen¬
tences, or even three. It always gave me great pleasure. Not only is it the
fastest way for a writer to get out of a quagmire that there seems to be no
getting out of; I also like short sentences for their own sake. There's al¬
most no more beautiful sight than a simple declarative sentence. This ar¬
ticle is full of simple declarative sentences that have no punctuation and
that carry one simple thought. Without a word processor I wouldn't
have chopped as many of them down to their proper size, or done it with
so little effort. This is one of the main clarifying jobs that your machine
can help you to perform, especially if your writing requires you to guide
the reader into territory that is new and bewildering.
Not all my experiences, of course, were rosy. The machine had disad¬
vantages as well as blessings. Often, for instance, I missed not being able
to see more than twenty lines at a time—to review what I had written
earlier. If I wanted to see more lines I had to "scroll" them back into view.
122 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

But even this wasn't as painful as I had thought it would be. I found
that I could hold in my head the gist of what I had written and didn't
need to keep looking at it. Was this need, in fact, still another writer's
hang-up that I could shed? To some extent it was. I discovered, as I had
at so many other points in this journey, that various crutches I had al¬
ways assumed I needed were really not necessary. I made a decision to
just throw them away and found that I could still function. The only real
hardship occurred when a paragraph broke at the bottom of the screen.
This meant that the first lines of the paragraph were on one page and the
rest were on the next page, and I had to keep flicking the two pages back
and forth to read what I was writing. But again, it wasn't fatal. I learned
to live with it and soon took it for granted as an occupational hazard.

from How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words

by Paul Roberts

It s Friday afternoon, and you have almost survived another week of

classes. You are just looking forward dreamily to the weekend when the
English instructor says: "For Monday you will turn in a five-hundred-
word composition on college football."
Well, that puts a good big hole in the weekend. You don't have any
strong views on college football one way or the other. You get rather ex¬
cited during the season and go to all the home games and find it rather
more fun than not. On the other hand, the class has been reading Robert
Flutchins in the anthology and perhaps Shaw's "Eighty-Yard Run," and
from the class discussion you have got the idea that the instructor
thinks college football is for the birds. You are no fool. You can figure
out what side to take.
You might as well get it over with and enjoy Saturday and Sunday.
Five hundred words is about two double-spaced pages with normal
margins. You put in a sheet of paper, think up a title, and you're off:

Why College Football Should Be Abolished

College football should be abolished because it's bad for the
school and also bad for the players. The players are so busy prac¬
ticing that they don't have any time for their studies.

This, you feel, is a mighty good start. The only trouble is that it's only
thirty-two words. You still have four hundred and sixty-eight to go, and
you've pretty well exhausted the subject. It comes to you that you do
your best thinking in the morning, so you put away the typewriter and
go to the movies. But the next morning you have to do your washing
and some math problems, and in the afternoon you go to the game. The
English instructor turns up too, and you wonder if you've taken the
right side after all. Saturday night you have a date, and Sunday morn-
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 123

ing you have to go to church. (You can't let English assignments inter¬
fere with your religion.) What with one thing and another, it's ten o'¬
clock Sunday night before you get out the typewriter again. You make
a pot of coffee and start to fill out your views on college football. Put a
little meat on the bones.

Why College Football Should Be Abolished

In my opinion, it seems to me that college football should be abol¬

ished. The reason why I think this is to be true is because I feel that
football is bad for the colleges in nearly every aspect. As Robert
Hutchins says in his article in our anthology in which he discusses
college football, it would be better if the colleges had race horses and
had races with one another, because then the horses would not have
to attend classes. I firmly agree with Mr. Hutchins on this point, and
I am sure that many other students would agree too.
One reason why it seems to me that college football is bad is that
it has become too commercial. In the olden times when people
played football just for the fun of it, maybe college football was all
right, but they do not play football just for the fun of it now as they
used to in the old days. Nowadays college football is what you might
call a big business. Maybe this is not true at all schools, and I don't
think it is especially true here at State, but certainly this is the case at
most colleges and universities in America nowadays, as Mr.
Hutchins points out in his very interesting article. Actually the
coaches and alumni go around to the high schools and offer the high
school stars large salaries to come to their colleges and play football
for them. There was one case where a high school star was offered a
convertible if he would play football for a certain college.
Another reason for abolishing college football is that it is bad for
the players. They do not have time to get a college education, be¬
cause they are so busy playing football. A football player has to prac¬
tice every afternoon from three to six and then he is so tired that he
can't concentrate on his studies. He just feels like dropping off to
sleep after dinner, and then the next day he goes to his classes with¬
out having studied and maybe he fails the test.

(Good ripe stuff, so far, but you're still a hundred and fifty-one words
from home. One more push.)

Also I think college football is bad for the colleges and the univer¬
sities because not very many students get to participate in it. Out of
a college of ten thousand males only seventy-five or a hundred play
football, if that many. Football is what you might call a spectator
sport. That means that most people go to watch it but do not play it
themselves.
124 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

(Four hundred and fifteen. Well, you still have the conclusion, and
when you retype it, you can make the margins a little wider.)

These are the reasons why I agree with Mr. Hutchins that college
football should be abolished in American colleges and universities.
10 On Monday you turn it in, moderately hopeful, and on Friday it
comes back marked "weak in content" and sporting a big "D."
This essay is exaggerated a little, not much. The English instructor
will recognize it as reasonably typical of what an assignment on college
football will bring in. He knows that nearly half of the class will con¬
trive in five hundred words to say that college football is too commer¬
cial and bad for the players. Most of the other half will inform him that
college football builds character and prepares one for life and brings
prestige to the school. As he reads paper after paper all saying the same
thing in almost the same words, all bloodless, five hundred words drip¬
ping out of nothing, he wonders how he allowed himself to get trapped
into teaching English when he might have had a happy and interesting
life as an electrician or a confidence man.
Well, you may ask, what can you do about it? The subject is one on
which you have few convictions and little information. Can you be ex¬
pected to make a dull subject interesting? As a matter of fact, that is pre¬
cisely what you are expected to do. This is the writer's essential task. All
subjects, except sex, are dull until somebody makes them interesting.
The writer's job is to find the argument, the approach, the angle, the
wording that will take the reader with him. This is seldom easy, and it
is particularly hard in subjects that have been much discussed: College
Football, Fraternities, Popular Music, Is Chivalry Dead?, and the like.
You will feel that there is nothing you can do with such subjects except
repeat the old bromides. But there are some things you can do which
will make your papers, if not throbbingly alive, at least less insufferably
tedious than they might otherwise be.

Avoid the Obvious Content

Say the assignment is college football. Say that you've decided to be

against it. Begin by putting down the arguments that come to your mind:
It is too commercial, it takes the students' minds off their studies, it is
hard on the players, it makes the university a kind of circus instead of an
intellectual center, for most schools it is financially ruinous. Can you
think of any more arguments, just off hand? All right. Now when you
write your paper, make sure that you don't use any of the material on this list.
If these are the points that leap to your mind they will leap to everyone
else's too, and whether you get a "C" or a "D" may depend on whether
the instructor reads your paper early when he is fresh and tolerant or late,
when the sentence "In my opinion, college football has become too com¬
mercial," inexorably repeated, has brought him to the brink of lunacy.
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 125

Be against college football for some reason or reasons of your own. If

they are keen and perceptive ones, that's splendid. But even if they are
trivial or foolish or indefensible, you are still ahead so long as they are
not everybody else's reasons too. Be against it because the colleges
don t spend enough money on it to make it worthwhile, because it is
bad for the characters of the spectators, because the players are forced
to attend classes, because the football stars hog all the beautiful women,
because it competes with baseball and is therefore un-American and
possibly Communist inspired. There are lots of more or less unused rea¬
sons for being against college football.
Sometimes it is a good idea to sum up and dispose of the trite and
conventional points before going on to your own. This has the advan¬
tage of indicating to the reader that you are going to be neither trite nor
conventional. Something like this:

We are often told that college football should be abolished because

it has become too commercial or because it is bad for the players.
These arguments are no doubt very cogent, but they don't go to the
heart of the matter.

Then you go to the heart of the matter.

Take the Less Usual Side

One rather simple way of getting into your paper is to take the side of the
argument that most of the citizens will want to avoid. If the assignment
is an essay on dogs, you can, if you choose, explain that dogs are faithful
and lovable companions, intelligent, useful as guardians of the house
and protectors of children, indispensable in police work-in short, when
all is said and done, man's best friends. Or you can suggest that those big
brown eyes conceal, more often than not, a vacuity of mind and an in¬
constancy of purpose; that the dogs you have known most intimately
have been mangy, ill-tempered brutes, incapable of instruction; and that
only your nobility of mind and fear of arrest prevent you from kicking
the flea-ridden animals when you pass them on the street.
Naturally personal convictions will sometimes dictate your ap¬
proach. If the assigned subject is "Is Methodism Rewarding to the Indi¬
vidual?" and you are a pious Methodist, you have really no choice. But
few assigned subjects, if any, will fall into this category. Most of them
will lie in broad areas of discussion with much to be said on both sides.
They are intellectual exercises, and it is legitimate to argue now one way
and now another, as debaters do in similar circumstances. Always take
the side that looks to you hardest, least defensible. It will almost always
turn out to be easier to write interestingly on that side.
This general advice applies where you have a choice of subjects. If
you are to choose among "The Value of Fraternities" and "My Favorite
126 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

High School Teacher" and "What I Think About Beetles/' by all means
plump for the beetles. By the time the instructor gets to your paper, he
will be up to his ears in tedious tales about the French teacher at Bloom-
bury High and assertions about how fraternities build character and
prepare one for life. Your views on beetles, whatever they are, are
bound to be a refreshing change.
Don't worry too much about figuring out what the instructor thinks
about the subject so that you can cuddle up with him. Chances are his
views are no stronger than yours. If he does have convictions and you
oppose him, his problem is to keep from grading you higher than
you deserve in order to show he is not biased. This doesn't mean that
you should always cantankerously dissent from what the instructor
says; that gets tiresome too. And if the subject assigned is "My Pet
Peeve, do not begin, "My pet peeve is the English instructor who as¬
signs papers on 'my pet peeve.'" This was still funny during the War of
1812, but it has sort of lost its edge since then. It is in general good man¬
ners to avoid personalities.

Slip Out of Abstraction

20 If you will study the essay on college football [near the beginning of this
essay], you will perceive that one reason for its appalling dullness is
that it nevei gets down to particulars. It is just a series of not very glit¬
tering generalities; Football is bad for the colleges," "it has become too
commercial," "football is a big business," "it is bad for the players," and
so on. Such round phrases thudding against the reader's brain are un¬
likely to convince him, though they may well render him unconscious.
If you want the reader to believe that college football is bad for the
players, you have to do more than say so. You have to display the evil.
Take your roommate, Alfred Simkins, the second-string center. Picture
poor old Alfy coming home from football practice every evening,
bruised and aching, agonizingly tired, scarcely able to shovel the
mashed potatoes into his mouth. Let us see him staggering up to the
room, getting out his econ textbook, peering desperately at it with his
good eye, falling asleep and failing the test in the morning. Let us share
his unbearable tension as Saturday draws near. Will he fail, be demoted,
lose his monthly allowance, be forced to return to the coal mines? And
if he succeeds, what will be his reward? Perhaps a slight ripple of ap¬
plause when the third-string center replaces him, a moment of elation
in the locker room if the team wins, of despair if it loses. What will he
look back on when he graduates from college? Toil and torn ligaments.
And what will be his future? He is not good enough for pro football,
and he is too obscure and weak in econ to succeed in stocks and bonds'
College football is tearing the heart from Alfy Simkins and, when it fin¬
ishes with him, will callously toss aside the shattered hulk.
This is no doubt a weak enough argument for the abolition of college
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 127

football, but it is a sight better than saying, in three or four variations,

that college football (in your opinion) is bad for players.
Look at the work of any professional writer and notice how
constantly he is moving from the generality, the abstract statement, to
the concrete example, the facts and figures, the illustration. If he is writ¬
ing on juvenile delinquency, he does not just tell you that juveniles are
(it seems to him) delinquent and that (in his opinion) something should
be done about it. He shows you juveniles being delinquent, tearing up
movie theaters in Buffalo, stabbing high school principals in Dallas,
smoking marijuana in Palo Alto. And more than likely he is moving
toward some specific remedy, not just a general wringing of the hands.
It is no doubt possible to be too concrete, too illustrative or anecdotal,
but few inexperienced writers err this way. For most the soundest ad¬
vice is to be seeking always for the picture, to be always turning general
remarks into seeable examples. Don't say, "Sororities teach girls the so¬
cial graces." Say, "Sorority life teaches a girl how to carry on a conver¬
sation while pouring tea, without sloshing the tea into the saucer."
Don't say, "I like certain kinds of popular music very much." Say,
"Whenever I hear Gerber Sprinklittle play 'Mississippi Man' on the
trombone, my socks creep up my ankles."

Get Rid of Obvious Padding

The student toiling away at his weekly English theme is too often tor¬
mented by a figure: five hundred words. How, he asks himself, is he to
achieve this staggering total? Obviously by never using one word when
he can somehow work in ten.
He is therefore seldom content with a plain statement like "Fast driv¬
ing is dangerous." This has only four words in it. He takes thought, and
the sentence becomes:

In my opinion, fast driving is dangerous.

Better, but he can do better still:

In my opinion, fast driving would seem to be rather dangerous.

If he is really adept, it may come out:

In my humble opinion, though I do not claim to be an expert on

this complicated subject, fast driving, in most circumstances, would
seem to be rather dangerous in many aspects, or at least so it would
seem to me.

Thus four words have turned into forty, and not an iota of content has
been added.
Now this is a way to go about reaching five hundred words, and if
you are content with a "D" grade, it is as good a way as any. But if you
aim higher, you must work differently. Instead of stuffing your sen-
128 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

tences with straw, you must try steadily to get rid of the padding, to
make your sentences lean and tough. If you are really working at it,
your first draft will greatly exceed the required total, and then you will
work it down, thus:

It is thought in some quarters that fraternities do not contribute as

much as might be expected to campus life.
Some people think that fraternities contribute little to campus life.
The average doctor who practices in small towns or in the country
must toil night and day to heal the sick.
Most country doctors work long hours.

When I was a little girl, I suffered from shyness and embarrassment

in the presence of others.
I was a shy little girl.

It is absolutely necessary for the person employed as a marine fire¬

man to give the matter of steam pressure his undivided attention at
all times.

The fireman has to keep his eye on the steam gauge.

You may ask how you can arrive at five hundred words at this rate.
Simple. You dig up more real content. Instead of taking a couple of ob¬
vious points off the surface of the topic and then circling warily around
them for six paragraphs, you work in and explore, figure out the details.
You illustrate. You say that fast driving is dangerous, and then you
prove it. How long does it take to stop a car at forty and eighty? How
far can you see at night? What happens when a tire blows? What hap¬
pens in a head-on collision at fifty miles an hour? Pretty soon your pa¬
per will be full of broken glass and blood and headless torsos, and
reaching five hundred words will not really be a problem.

Call a Fool a Fool

Some of the padding in freshman themes is to be blamed not on anxiety

about the word minimum but on excessive timidity. The student writes.
In my opinion, the principal of my high school acted in ways that I be¬
lieve every unbiased person would have to call foolish/' This isn't ex¬
actly what he means. What he means is, "My high school principal was
a fool. If he was a fool, call him a fool. Hedging the thing about with "in-
my-opinion's" and "it-seems-to-me's" and "as-I-see-it's" and "at-least-
from-my-point-of-view's" gains you nothing. Delete these phrases
whenever they creep into your paper.
The student's tendency to hedge stems from a modesty that in other
circumstances would be commendable. He is, he realizes, young and
mexperienced, and he half suspects that he is dopey and fuzzy-minded
beyond the average. Probably only too true. But it doesn't help to an-
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 129

nounce your incompetence six times in every paragraph. Decide what

you want to say and say it as vigorously as possible, without apology
and in plain words.
Linguistic diffidence can take various forms. One is what we call eu¬
phemism. This is the tendency to call a spade "a certain garden imple¬
ment or women s underwear “unmentionables/' It is stronger in some
eras than others and in some people than others but it always operates
more or less in subjects that are touchy or taboo: death, sex, madness, and
so on. Thus we shrink from saying “He died last night" but say instead
“passed away," "left us," “joined his Maker," "went to his reward." Or we
try to take off the tension with a lighter cliche: "kicked the bucket,"
“cashed in his chips," “handed in his dinner pail." We have found all sorts
of ways to avoid saying mad: "mentally ill," "touched," "not quite right
upstairs, off his trolley," “not in his right mind." Even such a now plain
word as insane began as a euphemism with the meaning "not healthy."
Modem science, particularly psychology, contributes many polysyl¬
lables in which we can wrap our thoughts and blunt their force. To
many writers there is no such thing as a bad schoolboy. Schoolboys are
maladjusted or unoriented or misunderstood or in the need of guidance
or lacking in continued success toward satisfactory integration of the
personality as a social unit, but they are never bad. Psychology no
doubt, makes us better men and women, more sympathetic and toler¬
ant, but it doesn't make writing any easier. Had Shakespeare been con¬
fronted with psychology, "To be or not to be" might have come out, "To
continue as a social unit or not to do so. That is the personality problem.
Whether 'tis a better sign of integration at the conscious level to display
a psychic tolerance toward the maladjustments and repressions in¬
duced by one's lack of orientation in one's environment or—" But Ham¬
let would never have finished the soliloquy.
Writing in the modem world, you cannot altogether avoid modem jar¬
gon. Nor, in an effort to get away from euphemism, should you salt your
paper with four-letter words. But you can do much if you will mount
guard against those roundabout phrases, those echoing polysyllables
that tend to slip into your writing to rob it of its crispness and force.

Beware of Pat Expressions

Other things being equal, avoid phrases like “other things being equal."
Those sentences that come to you whole, or in two or three doughy
lumps, are sure to be bad sentences. They are no creation of yours but
pieces of common thought floating in the community soup.
Pat expressions are hard, often impossible, to avoid, because they
come too easily to be noticed and seem too necessary to be dispensed
with. No writer avoids them altogether, but good writers avoid them
more often than poor writers.
By "pat expressions" we mean such tags as "to all practical intents
130 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

and purposes/' "the pure and simple truth/' "from where I sit/' "the
time of his life," "to the ends of the earth/' "in the twinkling of an eye,"
"as sure as you're born," "over my dead body/' "under cover of dark¬
ness," "took the easy way out," "when all is said and done," "told him
time and time again," "parted the best of friends," "stand up and be
counted, "gave him the best years of her life," "worked her fingers to
the bone." Like other cliches, these expressions were once forceful. Now
we should use them only when we can't possibly think of anything else.
Some pat expressions stand like a wall between the writer and
thought. Such a one is "the American way of life." Many student writ¬
ers feel that when they have said that something accords with the
American way of life or does not they have exhausted the subject. Ac¬
tually, they have stopped at the highest level of abstraction. The Amer¬
ican way of life is the complicated set of bonds between a hundred and
eighty million ways. All of us know this when we think about it, but the
tag phrase too often keeps us from thinking about it.
So with many another phrase dear to the politician: "this great land
of ours," "the man in the street," "our national heritage." These may
prove our patriotism or give a clue to our political beliefs, but otherwise
they add nothing to the paper except words.

Colorful Words

The writer builds with words, and no builder uses a raw material more
slippery and elusive and treacherous. A writer's work is a constant
struggle to get the right word in the right place, to find that particular
word that will convey his meaning exactly, that will persuade the
reader or soothe him or startle or amuse him. He never succeeds alto¬
gether—sometimes he feels that he scarcely succeeds at all—but such
successes as he has are what make the thing worth doing.
40 There is no book of rules for this game. One progresses through ever¬
lasting experiment on the basis of ever-widening experience. There are
few useful generalizations that one can make about words as words,
but there are perhaps a few.
Some words are what we call "colorful." By this we mean that they
are calculated to produce a picture or induce an emotion. They are
dressy instead of plain, specific instead of general, loud instead of soft.
Thus, in place of Her heart beat," we may write, "Her heart pounded,
throbbed, fluttered, danced." Instead of "He sat in his chair," we may say!
"He lounged, sprawled, coiled." Instead of "It was hot," we may say, "It
was blistering, sultry, muggy, suffocating, steamy, wilting."
However, it should not be supposed that the fancy word is always
better. Often it is as well to write "Her heart beat" or "It was hot" if that
is all it did or all it was. Ages differ in how they like their prose. The
nineteenth century liked it rich and smoky. The twentieth has usually
 Making Decisions When Revising Drafts 131

preferred it lean and cool. The twentieth century writer, like all writers,
is forever seeking the exact word, but he is wary of sounding feverish.
He tends to pitch it low, to understate it, to throw it away. He knows
that if he gets too colorful, the audience is likely to giggle.
See how this strikes you: As the rich, golden glow of the sunset died
away along the eternal western hills, Angela's limpid blue eyes looked
softly and trustingly into Montague's flashing brown ones, and her
heart pounded like a drum in time with the joyous song surging in her
soul. Some people like that sort of thing, but most modem readers
would say, "Good grief," and turn on the television.

Colored Words

Some words we call not so much colorful as colored—that is, loaded

with associations, good or bad. All words—except perhaps structure
words—have associations of some sort. We have said that the meaning
of a word is the sum of the contexts in which it occurs. When we hear a
word, we hear with it an echo of all the situations in which we have
heard it before.
In some words, these echoes are obvious and discussible. The word
mother, for example, has for most people, agreeable associations. When
you hear mother you probably think of home, safety, love, food, and var¬
ious other pleasant things. If one writes, "She was like a mother to me,"
he gets an effect which he would not get in "She was like an aunt to
me." The advertiser makes use of the associations of mother by working
it in when he talks about his product. The politician works it in when he
talks about himself.
So also with such words as home, liberty, fireside, contentment, patriot,
tenderness, sacrifice, childlike, manly, bluff, limpid. All of these words are
loaded with associations that would be rather hard to indicate in a
straightforward definition. There is more than a literal difference be¬
tween "They sat around the fireside" and "They sat around the stove."
They might have been equally warm and happy around the stove, but
fireside suggests leisure, grace, quiet tradition, congenial company, and
stove does not.
Conversely, some words have bad associations. Mother suggests
pleasant things, but mother-in-law does not. Many mothers-in-law are
heroically lovable and some mothers drink gin all day and beat their
children insensible, but these facts of life are beside the point. The point
is that mother sounds good and mother-in-law does not.
Or consider the word intellectual. This would seem to be a compli¬
mentary term, but in point of fact it is not, for it has picked up asso¬
ciations of impracticably and ineffectuality and general dopiness. So
also such words as liberal, reactionary, Communist, socialist, capitalist,
radical, schoolteacher, truck driver, undertaker, operator, salesman, huckster,
132 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

speculator. These convey meaning on the literal level, but beyond that—
sometimes, in some places—they convey contempt on the part of the
speaker.
The question of whether to use loaded words or not depends on
what is being written. The scientist, the scholar, try to avoid them; for
the poet, the advertising writer, the public speaker, they are standard
equipment. But every writer should take care that they do not substi¬
tute for thought. If you write, "Anyone who thinks that is nothing but
a Socialist (or Communist or capitalist)," you have said nothing except
that you don't like people who think that, and such remarks are effec¬
tive only with the most naive readers. It is always a bad mistake to think
your readers more naive then they really are.

Colorless Words

so But probably most student writers come to grief not with words that are
colorful or those that are colored but with those that have no color at all.
A pet example is nice, a word we would find it hard to dispense with in
casual conversation but which is no longer capable of adding much to
a description. Colorless words are those of such general meaning that in
a particular sentence they mean nothing. Slang adjectives like cool
("That's real cool") tend to explode all over the language. They are ap¬
plied to everything, lose their original force, and quickly die.
Beware also of norms of very general meaning, like circumstances,
cases, instances, aspects, factors, relationships, attitudes, eventualities, etc. In
most circumstances you will find that those cases of writing which con¬
tain too many instances of words like these will in this and other aspects
have factors leading to unsatisfactory relationships with the reader re¬
sulting in unfavorable attitudes on his part and perhaps other eventu¬
alities, like a grade of "D." Notice also what "etc." means. It means "I'd
like to make this list longer, but I can't think of any more examples."

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 4.5

Analyzing Writers' Ideas on Writing
What points about revision does each writer—Murray, Zinsser, and Roberts—
emphasize? What do these readings tell you about how different writers work
through their writing processes? What points of revision do you want to be¬
come more concerned with?
 Making Decisions Wizen Revising Drafts 133

WRITING PROJECT

This chapter has included both readings and Thinking^Writing Activities

that encouraged you to reflect on decision making and on revision. Be sure to
reread what you wrote for those activities; you may be able to use it to help
yourself complete this project.

_WRITING PROJECT Analyzing a Decision to be Made

Write an essay in which you analyze a decision you must make now
or in the near future. Be sure to select a decision for which you al¬
ready have considerable information or want to obtain more. (If you
are not facing an immediate decision, you may write about one you
made recently.) If you can, include all five steps in the decision¬
making method. After you have drafted your essay, revise it to the
best of your ability. Follow directions given by your instructor as to
length, format, and so forth.

Begin by considering the key elements in the Thinking*-* Writing

Model.

Purpose
You have a variety of purposes here. First, you can use this opportunity to
work through an important real-life decision so as to obtain the best possible
outcome. If others will be involved in or affected by this decision, your paper
can help them to see your best thinking about it and thus be more likely to
agree with your decision. Also, in writing this paper, you can practice the cre¬
ative and critical thinking involved in the five-step method for making deci¬
sions. You can hone your revision skills both by carefully working through
the revision questions presented on pages 111-112 and by using ideas about
revision you acquired from Chapter 1, as well as from this chapter and its
readings. Finally, of course, you want to receive a satisfactory grade for com¬
pleting the assignment well.

Audience
Just as you did in the Writing Project for Chapter 3, you have a range of read¬
ers within your audience. You yourself are an important audience, for in
working through the possible choices, you may find yourself actually mak¬
ing the decision you face. If the decision involves other people in your life,
they would make an excellent audience for both early drafts and final copy
because they could provide ideas about the choices, possibly suggest choices
you haven't thought of, and offer their reactions to your decision. Your class¬
mates can be valuable peer reviewers of a draft, reacting as intelligent readers
who are not involved in the decision and therefore able to be objective about
both the clarity of your writing and the logic of your decision. Finally, your
134 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

instructor remains an audience who will judge how well you have planned,
drafted, and revised. As a writing teacher, your instructor cares about a clear
focus, logical organization, specific examples, and correctness; keep these re¬
quirements in mind as you revise, edit, and proofread.

Subject
Decisions are often challenging to think about and difficult to make. Some¬
times we haven't enough information to make an intelligent choice; some¬
times we think we know what the right decision is, yet are reluctant to
actually make the decision. Therefore, we often tend to put off making a de¬
cision for as long as possible. It may be helpful to consider that not making a
decision is, in a way, making a decision to do nothing. And doing nothing is
one choice that can be included in the five-step method. Actually evaluating
the pros and cons of doing nothing can help us to see whether or not we need
to make some other decision—one that would change the situation we are
considering.

Writer
You approach this Writing Project as the expert on the subject, since you are
analyzing one of your own decisions. If you have done the projects in Chap¬
ter 2 or Chapter 3, you may have felt the confidence that such expertise brings
and the satisfaction of sharing your experiences with the audience to whom
you have directed your writing. One challenge here is to distinguish between
your own expertise about the decision-making situation and the needs of
your audience for enough background and information. Another challenge is
to focus on the material provided earlier in this chapter, because this assign¬
ment moves away from recollecting experience and asks you to apply the
decision-making process.

The Writing Process

The following sections will guide you through the stages of generating, plan¬
ning, drafting, and revising as you work on an essay about making a deci¬
sion. Try to be particularly conscious of both the creative and critical thinking
you do in making your decision, and the critical thinking and decision¬
making you do when you revise.

Generating Ideas
Refer back to the list you made in Thinking^Writing Activity 4.3 for possi¬
ble subject choices. You may want to develop the writing you did there on
one decision, or you may see that another decision would work better for this
writing project.
 The Writing Process 135

■ Think about when each of the decisions must be made. Is there one you
must make m the near future? If so, this is a good opportunity for you
to accomplish two things at one time: writing your paper and making
your decision. , °
■ Think about how much additional information you would need to eval¬
uate possible choices for each of the decisions on your list. Do you have
time to locate and absorb all that information?
■ Think about which decision you are most interested in making, or
which you are most worried about making.
■ Decide on a tentative topic: that is, which decision you will work on.
■ Describe the decision-making situation as clearly as you can.
■ Brainstorm as many possible choices as you can. Ask others involved in
the decision to help.
■ Eliminate choices that you know are impractical or morally repugnant
to you.
■ Determine what information you need to find for each choice. Locate
that information.
■ Write each choice on a separate sheet of paper. Divide the paper into
two columns: Pros and Cons. Write as much as you can in each column.
■ Freewrite for five minutes on what would happen and how you would
feel following each possible choice.
■ Tree write for five minutes on how you would know if any given choice
were the right one.

Defining a Focus
Write a tentative thesis statement making clear to your audience that you are
going to explore a decision-making situation. You might write something like
"After thinking about the situation carefully, I realize that I have only two pos¬
sible choices/' Or you might name the possible choices: "My choices for hous¬
ing next year come down to these three: living with my aunt, sharing an
apartment with my friend, or looking for a live-in job situation." You may even
decide to announce your decision in your thesis statement: "After carefully
weighing my options, I have decided to major in business administration."

Organizing Ideas
The five-step method for making decisions fits well with essay structure. Your
description of the decision-making situation might be the beginning of an in¬
troduction, to be completed by your thesis statement. Each of the possible
choices, explained in as much detail as possible, along with the pros and cons
of that choice, could provide a body paragraph. Your decision on the best
choice and your plan for monitoring it could provide a conclusion to the essay.
Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

Drafting
Begin with the easiest part to draft. True, the description you wrote of the
decision-making situation could begin the introduction, but consider what, if
any, additional information your audience will need in order to understand
the situation. The introduction can end with your tentative thesis statement.
A clear way to begin each body paragraph is with a topic sentence that
names the possible choice being discussed. Then provide the audience with
sufficient information to help them understand what that choice would
mean. Use the sheets you prepared on the advantages and disadvantages of
each choice for help.
Once you have drafted your body paragraphs, you will be ready to de¬
cide on the best order for them. Try arranging them in different orders until
you discover the one most likely to be helpful to your audience.
In your conclusion or in your thesis statement, name the choice you have
decided on. You may want to explain why, if you think your reason may not
be obvious to your audience. Remember to explain how you will monitor the
results of your decision.

Revising
Ideally, at this point, you should put your draft aside for a day or two. If
deadlines won't permit you to do that, then at least take a break before you
try to revise. When you are ready to "re-see" your writing, begin by reading
it through slowly, preferably aloud. If possible, have someone whose opinion
you respect read it; ask for feedback. Then work through the hierarchy of re¬
vision concerns that follows. Remember that you have two decisions to make
for each question: (1) Where is improvement needed? and (2) Where im¬
provement is needed, how exactly, can I make my draft better?

1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.

■ Does it fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ Is the organization logical?
■ Do you provide enough evidence?
■ Is your point of view consistent?
■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs?
■ Have you documented information from your sources accurately?
■ Have you used quotation marks around direct quotes or set the quotes
off by indenting?

2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.

■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
 The Writing Process 137

■ Is the introduction appropriate for the rest of the draft?

■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a "visible" struc¬
ture?

■ If you are working with an "invisible" structure, is your focus clearlv

implied? J
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
■ Does each body paragraph develop a different idea?
■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Is your conclusion effective?

3- Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.

■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
■ Are sentences with blended quotations (that is, quotations that are inte¬
grated into the syntax of the sentence instead of introduced with "He
said ... or 'She said ...") complete and easy to read?
■ Are quotations shortened with ellipsis marks accurate and readable?
■ Are there several choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Are any sentences vague?
■ Do any sentences need to be corrected for standard English grammar
and usage?

4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.

■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are any words misspelled?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
■ Does your paper make a good impression by being neat?
■ Is there anything else you could do to improve your draft?

Proofreading
After you prepare a final draft, check for standard grammar and punctuation.
Proofread carefully for omitted words and punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread again for
the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.
138 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

Student Essay
The following essays show how two students responded to this assignment.

STUDENT WRITING
Deciding What to Do About My Hearing Problem
by Bao-Toan Le

I work in the Computer Writing Center at my college. Every day I listen

and reply to many students’ questions. But six months ago, when stu¬
dents asked me questions, I noticed that I could not hear them very
clearly. I had to ask them to repeat three or four times. From that day
forward, my hearing kept getting worse. I realized that I had to do
something about it. I thought I had two alternative solutions to con¬
sider and choose from: using the traditional Chinese treatments or fol¬
lowing the advice of my otolaryngologists. Fortunately, I discovered
that there was a third alternative, which combined the best features of
the other two.
The first alternate solution was to use the traditional treatments,
such as the therapy of point acupuncture and Chinese medicinal
herbs. Point acupuncture is a very effective method to cure various
kinds of diseases, especially earache, by massaging the thumb and in¬
dex fingers right on the fourteen pressure points of the head. Chinese
medical herbs, which are refined from roots, stalks, and leaves of
many different trees, are also good medicines. The advantage of this
solution was that I could restore my hearing and gain more confi¬
dence. For instance, massaging eight particular vital points around my
head and neck with my thumb, I could alleviate the headache which
accompanies my deafness in just a few minutes. Therefore, I would
not be scared of getting sick anymore. Another advantage was that I
would not have to pay anything for this treatment because my uncle
who is a traditional pharmacist would teach me at no charge. Never¬
theless, these remedies require much time and precision. I would
have to spend at least three months to memorize the pressure points,
and of course I would stay "deaf" for five or six months more. Also, I
would have to find the right kinds of herbs and to prepare the combi¬
nation of these herbs. For instance, first I would need to find three
different herbs: A, B, and C. Then I would have to blend 25 percent of
the A leaves, 30 percent of the B radicles, 45 percent of the stalks of
the vegetable C herbs, and salt, and then pour in the water and boil
until the water equals one-third of the original amount. Another minor
disadvantage is that most of the Chinese herbs are very bitter and
have unpleasant smells.
 Student Writing 139

Another alternative was to follow the advice of my otolaryngolo-

Sists: have some tests done, take medicine, and have sursery if neces¬
sary. The doctors carefully did the tests, including graphing tests,
beeping tests, listening and speaking tests, and examining the throat,
the nose and both ears. Therefore, their opinions were reliable and '

the remedy would be quick and effective. After the tests, they'told
me that my eardrums did not have enough air flow into them. They
decided to give me medicine. If the medicine did not cure me, they
would do surgery to rearrange the ear bones. The surgery would stop
the problem forever. And because I have health insurance, the fees for
the doctors were not expensive.- only ten dollars per visit. But there
were some disadvantages to their treatments: suffering from lack of
appetite and sleeplessness from the medication as well as suffering
from the ringing in my ears which I thought it caused. The operation, if
I needed it, might hurt and leave a scar on my face.
After considering the advantages and disadvantages of each solu¬
tion, I decided to use the point acupuncture therapy and to ask the
otolaryngologists to give me a lighter dose of the medicine to reduce
the side effects. I also stopped taking the Chinese herbs with my
medicine, and this helped with the ear ringing. After three weeks of
taking the lighter drugs and massaging the fourteen vital points, my
hearing now is much better than it was before. My decision was the
right one, and I am very happy with my progress.

STUDENT WRITING
A Space Problem
by Jon Cohen

My rock and roll band, "The Love Machine," needed a place to prac¬
tice. We had practiced at my parents’ spacious home in Bethesda,
which had worked out very well. We had made noise until 10:00 p.m.
without any problems, we had practiced in a location central to the
members of the band, we had easy parking, we had not caused any
tension in a user-lender relationship as my parents were supportive of
us, our practice space had been comfortable, and we had been able
to store our equipment with confidence that it would be safe. Unfor¬
tunately, my parents sold their home and moved into a condominium
where loud noise was not allowed. We had to find a different place
to practice,- we didn’t have many choices, and deciding what to do
wasn’t easy.
One place I was interested in was a large apartment in George¬
town. In this apartment were people I did not know who had their
own rock band that practiced in a loft located in the apartment. They
140 Chapter 4 Thinking Critically About Writing—Revising Purposefully

wanted someone else to use their practice space at an arranged time

for a small fee. I actually looked at the place. The tenants claimed we
could make noise because they were located in the business district
of Georgetown where noise was allowed in the evenings. The location
was close to all of us. The fee was small, at less than $200 a month,
and the tenants said we could store equipment in the space.
There were problems with this apartment, however. Parking in
Georgetown was very difficult. Also, the practice space, although big,
could only be reached by way of a ladder and that I felt was an un¬
comfortable prospect. Finally, we did not know the people who were
renting the space at all, and I was a little nervous about leaving our
equipment with them.
Another place in which I was interested was a group house in Ar¬
lington, Virginia. The people who were living in the group house I
knew a little bit as they had seen "The Love Machine" perform. The
people in the group house were planning to have a space in their
basement available for music. They were going to use it for their own
projects but felt we could use it also. Their location in Arlington was
close to everyone in the band. The rent they asked was very low at
less than $100 a month. Parking was readily available in front of the
house, and I felt that the band's relationship with these people would
be strengthened by our association because they truly believed in the
band.
There were some problems with the house in Virginia. The houses
in the residential neighborhood were very close together, and there
was a possibility that the neighbors would be bothered by the noise
and would not tolerate it. Also, there was sometimes flooding in the
basement where the practice space was. The people in the house
wanted to build a stage over the space to protect it from water,- also,
they wanted to insulate the space so that sound would not escape.
Another choice I had was to pass these places up and keep wait¬
ing. My band and I were looking for opportunities and people were
aware that we had a problem. However, while waiting, the band
would not be practicing. When a band does not stay active, band
members start to set aside their time for other things. Getting the
band started again might have been impossible.
The decision we made was to practice at the group house in Vir¬
ginia. Our equipment did stay safe, and our relationship with the
people in the house became better. However, we were still a little un¬
comfortable using the place of people we did not know really well.
Also, the neighbors did start to complain about the noise.
Fortunately, my drummer recently moved into a house in Washing¬
ton, D.C., that happened to have space for a band to practice. We are
I practicing there now, and we will see how it goes.
 CHAPTER 5

Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

Critical Thinking Focus: Language as a system

Writing Focus: Using language to clarify thinking
Reading Theme: Essays about language
Writing Projects: Experience with language

Understanding and Using Language

The first four chapters of this book have focused on the Thinkings ^Writing
Model (introduced in Chapter 1, page 8) and on how it illustrates the in¬
teractive relationships among critical thinking, creative thinking, and thought¬
ful writing. Language is the instrument that makes all these activities possible.
With its power to represent thoughts, feelings, and experiences symbolically,
language is the most important tool the thinking process has.
Every time we use language, we send a message about our thinking.
When we speak or write, we are not simply making sounds or writing sym¬
bols; we are using language to communicate our thinking by conveying
ideas, sharing feelings, and describing experiences. At the same time, the
process of using language generates ideas, and language itself shapes and in¬
fluences thinking. When use of language is sloppy—vague, general, indis¬
tinct, imprecise, foolish, inaccurate, and so on—it leads to thinking of the
same sort. The reverse is also true: clear, precise language leads to clear, pre¬
cise thinking, speaking, and writing.
Thus, using language with clarity and precision is a vital requirement if
other people are to understand the thoughts we are trying to communicate.
And to use language effectively, we need to view language as a system, with
agreed-upon sets of rules and expectations.
To grasp this essential tool more fully and use it more powerfully, we will

141
142 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

begin by considering both the development of languages and the symbolic

nature of language. We will then consider strategies for using language ef¬
fectively and for using language to clarify thinking. Finally, we will consider
the social uses of language: how language is used in different social contexts
and how it can be used to influence thinking and behavior.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.1

A World Without Language
Imagine a world without language. Imagine that you suddenly lose your ability
to speak, to write, to read. Imagine that your only means of expression is
grunts, shrieks, and gestures. And finally, imagine that you soon discover that
everyone else in the world has also lost the ability to use language. Write a one-
page description of what such.a world would be like. Be prepared to share
your response with your class.

The Development of Language

Language forms the bedrock of human relations. Sharing thoughts, feelings,
and experiences draws people together and leads to forming relationships.
Consider the social groups in your school, your neighborhood, or your
community. Have you ever thought about how language plays a central role
in bringing people together into groups and in maintaining these groups? A
loss of language would both limit the complexity of your individual rela¬
tionships with others and drastically affect the way you live in society.
Speculation on the origin of language has excited the human imagination
for ages. Herodotus, the ancient Greek "father of history," told of an Egyptian
king who wanted to find out which language might have been the parent of
all other languages. In order to solve this problem, the king arranged to have
two newborn infants raised away from all hearing of human speech, so that
he would find out the first words of humans not influenced by others' speech.
After two years, the children were heard to say bekos. The king asked in which
language this word had meaning and learned that in Phrygian, one of the di¬
alects spoken in Asia Minor, bekos meant "bread." After that time Phrygian
was regarded as the parent language of all the languages of the world.
Today we know more than either the Egyptian king or Herodotus about
the development of languages. We know that no single language was the par¬
ent of all others. Rather, like people, languages belong to families. Languages
in the same family share some characteristics with other members of their
family, but they also demonstrate individual characteristics. We know that
 The Development of Language 143

languages, like the human beings of whom they are a natural part, live,
change, and die. Phrygian is no longer a living language; neither is the an¬
cient Indian language Sanskrit, nor is Latin.
English, like Spanish, French, Chinese, Urdu, or any of the other lan¬
guages that you may speak, is a living language—and it has changed over
hundreds of years. The English language has gone through four major evo¬
lutionary stages: Old English, a.d. 460-1050; Middle English, a.d. 1050-1450;
Early Modern English, a.d. 1450-1700; and Modern English, a.d. 1700 to the
present. Because languages are systems based on sound, these stages of En¬
glish reflect variations in how the language has sounded. It is difficult to rep¬
resent these sounds accurately for the older periods of English because of the
absence of tapes or phonograph recordings. For example, the following
different versions of the Lord's Prayer, sacred to Christians, present writ¬
ten symbols that are approximations based on the consensus of linguistic
scholars.

The Lord's Prayer

Old English
Faeder ure
Thu the eart on heofonum.
Si thin name gehalgod.
Tobecume thin rice.
Gewurthe thin willa on eorthan swa swa on heofonum.
Urne gedaeghwamlican hlaf syle you to daeg.
And forgyf you urne gyltas, swa swa you forgyfath urum gyltendum.
And ne gelaed thu you on costnunge, ac alys you of yfele. Sothlice.

Middle English
Oure fadur
that art in hauenes
halewid be thi name;
thi kyngdoom come to;
be thi wile don in erthe as in heuene;
zyue to vs this dai oure breed ouer othir substaunce;
and forzyue to vs oure dettis, as you forzyuen to oure dettouris;
and lede vs not in to temptacioun,
but delyuere vs from yeul. Amen.

Early Modern English

Our Father
which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
144 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
for Thine is the kingdome, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.

Modern English
Our Father in heaven
may your name be held holy.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us.
And do not put us to the test,
but save us from evil.

As you read these versions of the Lord's Prayer, think about the varia¬
tions in sounds, words, and sentences. With the other members of your class,
discuss variations in the language(s) you speak.

The Symbolic Nature of Language

As human beings, we are able to share our thoughts and feelings with one
another because of our ability to symbolize, or let one thing represent some¬
thing else. Words are the most common symbols we use in our daily life.
Although words are only sounds or written marks that have no meaning
in and of themselves, they stand for objects, ideas, and other aspects of
human experience. For example, the word sailboat is a symbol that repre¬
sents a watergoing vessel with sails that is propelled by the wind. When
you speak or write sailboat, you are able to communicate the sort of thing
you are thinking about. Of course, if other people are to understand what you
are referring to when you use this symbol, they must first agree that this
symbol (sailboat) does in fact represent that wind-propelled vessel that floats
on the water. Naturally, you could always take others to the object you have
in mind and point it out to them, but using a symbol is much more con¬
venient.
Language symbols (or words) can take two forms; they can be spoken
sounds or written markings. The symbol sailboat can be either written down
or spoken aloud. Either way, it can communicate the sort of thing you are re¬
ferring to. Since using language is so natural to us, we rarely stop to realize
that our language is really a system of spoken sounds and written markings
that we use to represent various aspects of our experience.
 The Symbolic Nature of Language 145

Language: a system of symbols for thinking and communicating.

Sounds
In certain respects, language is like a set of symbolic building blocks. The ba¬
sic blocks are sounds, which may be symbolized by letters:

Letters such as A T C Q Y N, and so on—symbolize sounds

Sounds form the phonetic foundation of a language, and this explains why dif¬
ferent languages have such distinctly different "sounds." Try having members
of the class speak a word or a few sentences in other languages they know.
Listen to how the overall sound of each language differs from the others.
When human beings are infants, they possess the ability to make all the
sounds of all languages. As they are continually exposed to the specific group
of sounds of their own society's language, they gradually concentrate on
making only those sounds, while discarding or never developing others.

Words
Sounds combine to form larger sets of blocks called words. Words are iised to
represent the various aspects of our experience—they symbolize objects,
thoughts, feelings, actions, and concepts. When you read, hear, or think about
a word, it usually elicits in you a variety of ideas and feelings. Describe, for
instance, the ideas or feelings that the following words arouse in you: college
education, happiness, freedom, creativity, love.
The combination of all the ideas and feelings that a word arouses in your
mind comprises the "meaning" of that word to you. The ideas and feelings
that you just described reflect the meaning that each of those words has for
you as an individual. And although the meanings that these words have for
you is probably similar in many respects to the meanings they have for other
people, there are also many differences. Consider the different meanings
those same words have for the two people in the following dialogue:

A: For me, a college education represents the most direct path to my dreams. It's
the only way I can develop the knowledge and abilities required for my career.
B: I can't agree with you. I pursued a college education for a while, but it didn't
work out. I found that most of my courses consisted of large classes with profes¬
sors lecturing about subjects that had little relation to my life. The value of a col¬
lege education is overblown. I know many people with college degrees who have
not been able to find rewarding careers.
A: Don't you see? An important part of achieving happiness is learning about
things you aren't familiar with, expanding your horizons about the world, devel¬
oping new interests. That's what college can give you.
 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

B: I have enough interests. As far as I'm concerned, happiness consists of having

the opportunity to do the things that I enjoy doing with the people I enjoy doing
them with. For me, happiness is freedom!
A: Freedom to do what? Freedom is meaningful only when you have worthwhile op¬
tions and the wisdom to select the right ones. A college education can help pro¬
vide both!
B: That sounds very idealistic, but it's also naive. Many of the college graduates I have
met are neither wise nor happy. In order to be truly happy, you have to be involved
in creative activities. Every day should be a surprise, something different to look
forward to. Many careers pay well, but they don’t provide creative opportunities.
A: Being creative means doing things you love. When you really love something
you're doing, you are naturally creative. For example, I love to draw and paint,
and this provides a creative outlet for me. I don't need to be creative at work—I
have enough creative opportunities outside work.
B: You're wrong! Creativity doesn't mean simply being artistic. We should strive
to be creative in every part of our lives, keep looking for new possibilities and
unique experiences. And I think that you are misusing the word love. You can
really love only things that are alive, like people and pets.
A: That's a very weird idea of love you have. As far as I'm concerned, love is a word
that expresses a strong positive emotion that can be directed toward objects ("I
love my car"), activities ("I love to dance"), or people. I don't see what's so com¬
plicated about that.
B: To be able to love in any meaningful sense, the object of your love has to be able
to respond to you, so that the two of you can develop a relationship together. When
was the last time that your car responded to your love for it?
A: Very funny. I guess that we just have different ideas about the word love—as well
as the words happiness, freedom, and creativity.

As this dialogue suggests, words are not simple entities with one clear
meaning that everyone agrees on. Instead, most words are complex, multidi¬
mensional carriers of meaning; their exact meaning often varies from person
to person. These differences in meaning can lead to disagreements and con¬
fusion, as the foregoing dialogue illustrates. To clarify your understanding
about the way words function in your language and your thinking, you have
to examine the way words serve as vehicles to express meaning.
Words arouse in each of us a variety of ideas, feelings, and experiences.
Taken together, these ideas, feelings and experiences express the total mean¬
ing of the words for the individual person. Linguists believe that this total
meaning is actually composed of four different types of meaning:
■ Semantic meaning
■ Perceptual meaning
■ Syntactic meaning
■ Pragmatic meaning
Let us examine each of them in turn.
 The Symbolic Nature of Language 147

Semantic Meaning
The semantic meaning of a word expresses the relationship between a lin¬
guistic event (speaking or writing) and a nonlinguistic event (an object, idea,
or feeling). For example, saying "Chair" relates to an object you sit in, while
saying College education relates to the experience of earning an academic
degree through postsecondary study. What events (ideas, feelings, objects)
relate to happiness? to freedom? to creativity? to love?
The semantic meaning of a word, also referred to as its denotative mean-
ing, expresses the general properties of the word, and these properties deter¬
mine how the word is used within its language system. How do you discover
the general properties that determine word usage? Besides examining your
own knowledge of the meaning and use of words, you can check dictionary
definitions. They tend to focus on the general properties that determine word
usage. For example, a dictionary definition of chair might be "a piece of fur¬
niture consisting of a seat, legs, and back, and often arms, designed to ac¬
commodate one person."
However, to understand fully the semantic meaning of a word, you often
need to go beyond defining its general properties to identifying examples of
the word that embody those properties. If you are sitting in a chair or can see
one from where you are, examine its design. Does it embody all the proper¬
ties identified in the definition? (Sometimes unusual examples embody most,
but not all, the properties of a dictionary definition—for example, a beanbag
chair lacks legs and arms.) If you are trying to communicate the semantic
meaning of a word to someone, it is generally useful to provide both the gen¬
eral properties of the word and examples that embody those general proper¬
ties. Try identifying the general properties and examples for the following
words: happiness, freedom, creativity, love.

Perceptual Meaning
The total meaning of a word also includes its perceptual meaning, which ex¬
presses the relationship between a linguistic event and an individual's con¬
sciousness. For each of us, words elicit unique and personal thoughts and
feelings based on previous experiences and past associations. A person might
relate saying "chair" to his favorite chair in his living room or the small chair
that he built for his daughter. Perceptual meaning also includes an individ¬
ual's positive and negative responses to the word. When you read or hear the
word book, what positive or negative feelings does it arouse in you? What
about textbook? mystery book? comic book? cookbook? In each case, the word
probably elicited distinct feelings in your mind, and these feelings contribute
to the meaning each word has for you. For this reason, perceptual meaning is
also sometimes called connotative meaning, the literal or basic meaning of a
word plus all it suggests or connotes to you.
 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

Think about the words you considered earlier and describe what per¬
sonal perceptions, experiences, associations, and feelings they evoke in your
mind: college education, happiness, freedom, creativity, love.

Syntactic Meaning
A third component of a word's total meaning is its syntactic meaning, which
defines its relation to other words in a sentence. The syntactic meaning de¬
fines three relationships among words:
■ Content: words that express the major message of the sentence
■ Description: words that elaborate or modify the major message of the
sentence
■ Connection: words that join the major message of the sentence
For example, in the sentence "The two novice hikers crossed the ledge cau¬
tiously," hikers and crossed represent the content, or major message, of the sen¬
tence. Two and novice define a descriptive relationship to hikers, and cautiously
defines a descriptive relationship to crossed.
At first, you may think that this sort of relationship among words in¬
volves nothing more than semantic meaning. The following sentence, how¬
ever, clearly demonstrates the importance of syntactic meaning in language:
"Invisible fog rumbles in on lizard legs." At first this sentence seems to make
sense. Although fog does not rumble, and it is not invisible, and the concept of
moving on lizard legs seems incompatible with rumbling, the sentence does
"make sense" at some level of meaning—namely, at the syntactic level. One
reason it does is that in this sentence, there are three basic content words—
fog, rumbles, and legs—and two descriptive words—namely, invisible and
lizard.
Tire third major syntactic relationship is that of connection. You use con¬
nective words to join ideas, thoughts, or feelings being expressed. For exam¬
ple, you could connect content meaning to either of your two sentences in the
following fashion:

■ The two novice hikers crossed the ledge cautiously after one of them
slipped.
■ Invisible fog rumbles in on lizard legs, but acid rain doesn't.
When you add content words such as one slipped and rain doesn't, you join the
ideas, thoughts, and feelings they represent to the earlier expressed ideas,
thoughts, or feelings (hikers crossed and fog rumbles), using connective words
like after and but, as in the preceding sentences.
The second reason that "Invisible fog rumbles in on lizard legs" makes
sense at the syntactic level of meaning is that the words of that sentence obey
the syntax, or order, of English. Most speakers of English would have trouble
making sense of "Invisible rumbles legs lizard on fog in"—or of "Barks big
endlessly dog brown the," for that matter. Because of syntactic meaning, each
 The Symbolic Nature of Language 149

word in the sentence derives part of its total meaning from its combination
with the other words in that sentence in order to express and join ideas,
thoughts, and feelings. Look at the following sentences and explain the dif¬
ference in meaning between the two in each pair.
1. a. The process of achieving an education at college changes a person's fu¬
ture possibilities.
b. The process of achieving a college education changes a person's future
possibilities.
2. a. She felt happiness for her long-lost brother.
b. She felt the happiness of her long-lost brother.
3. a. The most important thing to me is freedom from the things that restrict
my choices.
b. The most important thing to me is freedom to make my choices with¬
out restrictions.
4. a. Michelangelo s painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling represents his
creative genius.
b. The Sistine Chapel ceiling represents the creative genius of Michelan¬
gelo's greatest painting.
5. a. I love the person I have been involved with for the past year.
b. I am in love with the person I have been involved with for the past year.

Pragmatic Meaning
The fourth element that contributes to the total meaning of a word is its prag¬
matic meaning. The pragmatic meaning of a word involves the person who
is speaking and the situation in which the word is spoken. For example, the
statement "That student likes to borrow books from the library" allows a
number of pragmatic interpretations:
1. Was the speaker outside looking at that student carrying books out of the
library?
2. Did the speaker have this information because of being a classmate of that
student, but not see him or her carrying books?
3. Was the speaker in the library watching that student check the books out?
The correct interpretation or meaning of the sentence depends on what
was actually taking place in the situation—in other words, its pragmatic
meaning, which could also be called its situational meaning. For each of the fol¬
lowing sentences, try describing a pragmatic context that identifies the per¬
son speaking and the situation in which it is being spoken.
1. A college education is currently necessary for many careers that formerly re¬
quired high school preparation.
2. The utilitarian ethical system is based on the principle that the right course
of action is that which brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number
of people.
150 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

3. The laws of this country attempt to balance the freedom of the individual
with the rights of society as a whole.
4. "You are all part of things, you are all part of creation, all kings, all poets,
all musicians, you have only to open up, to discover what is already
there."—Henry Miller
5. "If music be the food of love, play on."—Shakespeare

Having completed the activity, compare your answers with those of your
classmates. In what ways are the answers similar or different? Analyze the
way different pragmatic contexts (persons speaking and situations) affect the
meanings of the italicized words.
The four meanings you just examined—semantic, perceptual, syntactic,
pragmatic—create the total meaning of a word. That is to say, all the dimen¬
sions of any word—all the relationships that connect linguistic events with
nonlinguistic events, with your consciousness, with other linguistic events,
and with situations in the world—make up the meaning you assign to a
word. Chapter 9, Forming Concepts-—Writing to Classify and Define, will build
on the ideas of this section.

Using Language Effectively

To develop your ability to use language effectively in communicating your

thoughts, feelings, and experiences, you have to understand how language
functions when it is used well. One way to develop your writing ability is to
understand and use the relationships between sentence structure and mean¬
ing; that is, to craft sentences in which the grammar actually supports your
intended meaning.
Another way of improving your writing is to read widely. By reading as
much good writing as possible, you get a "feel" for how language can be used
well. You can get more specific ideas by analyzing the work of highly re¬
garded writers who use semantic and syntactical meanings accurately. They
also often use many action verbs, concrete nouns, and vivid adjectives to
communicate effectively. And of course a way to become a better writer is by
writing and by seeking feedback from readers. In this section, you will be
working with all these strategies.

Using Sentence Structure to Support Meaning

The word is the basic element of thought and language, and we have just ex¬
amined the importance of word meaning to language, to our ability to orga¬
nize experience and express concepts. However, we rarely use single words
alone. The exclamations "Oh!" or "Help!" may be exceptions, but when we
use even those words alone, the pragmatic meaning (or situation) is usually
 Using Sentence Structure to Support Meaning 151

unmistakable. That is why we could argue that the sentence, not the word, is
the basic unit of speech and writing. Therefore it is essential for a writer to
create effective sentences, which brings us to grammar.
In your past education, you may have thought of grammar as one part of
English and of composition as another part (and, quite possibly, of literature
as yet another). Grammar may have seemed merely a set of rules, and tricky
rules at that, to memorize and be quizzed on. It is true that grammar and
composition are often taught separately, but good writers understand that
they can use grammar to support their meaning. Grammar is the agreed-
upon set of principles about how to arrange and use words within sentences.
Good readers, especially good readers in college, know and respond to
the rules of grammar. As they read, they are constantly looking for the sub¬
ject (What is this sentence about?) and the predicate (What is the subject do-
ing?) of each sentence. Good writers are careful to use the two "power
positions of the sentence, the subject and the predicate, to convey main
ideas. For example, consider these three sentences:

Cal Ripkin slammed the baseball over the fence for a home run.
The baseball was hit far enough for a home run.
There was a baseball hit far enough for a home run.

The first sentence uses the power positions to tell us who did what. It
places the doer of the action in the subject position and uses a vigorous verb
as its predicate. The second sentence places the receiver of the action (the
baseball) in the subject position, leaving us to wonder who did what, and it uses
a less interesting verb (was hit) in its predicate position. The third sentence
wastes both power positions by using was in the predicate position and mak¬
ing the reader wait until after the verb to find out what the subject is. Yet all
three sentences are grammatically correct.
Most people would agree, however, that the first of the three sentences is
the most interesting and has that somewhat mysterious quality writing
teachers talk about, "good style." That sentence sketches a scene for us and
conveys some of the excitement of the moment. What we really are talking
about in this section is not grammatical correctness but about the logic of a
sentence and about using that logic to help your readers. And the way to
master that logic is to understand basic sentence structures and ways that ba¬
sic sentence structures can be combined.

Sentence Structure: The Basics

English sentences must have at least a subject and a verb. A group of words
that contains a subject and a verb is called a clause. A clause that can stand on
its own and make sense is called an independent clause. A clause that needs to
be attached to another clause because it does not express a complete idea is
called a dependent clause. These terms are never difficult to understand or re¬
member if you relate them to yourself: at the point where you are able to be
 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

on your own, you are independent. At any point where you need the support
of others, you are dependent.
Every clause is made up of two basic structural units: the subject and the
verb. Because these are so basic, every reader looks for them to learn what is
going on in the sentence. That is why the subject and the verb are considered
the power positions in any given clause and why, as a writer, you want to use
these positions with great care.
Within many clauses, the subject and the verb have other words that log¬
ically connect to them. The subject position is occupied by a noun, a pronoun,
or a noun clause (a clause used as a noun). Nouns, the representatives of
people, objects, and ideas, can be modified, or described, by adjectives,
prepositional phrases, or clauses. The complete subject of a clause or sentence
is the noun (or pronoun or noun clause) and all the words that describe or
add to the meaning of the noun. In the simple sentence unit "I swim," the
complete subject includes only I, The same is true for thfe simple sentence "I
swim in the summer." If we add the group of words My friend and to make
the simple sentence "My friend and I swim in the summer," the complete
subject becomes My friend and I. (It also is a compound subject; here, a noun
and a pronoun joined by a conjunction, and.)
The predicate position of the sentence must be occupied by a verb. The
verb, the representative of action or existence, may have a direct object or
a predicate adjective or predicate noun following it. The verb may be modi¬
fied by prepositional phrases or by adverbs. The verb with all its complements
and modifiers, the words that help describe or clarify its meaning, is called the
complete predicate. For example, the verb in the simple sentence unit "I swim"
is swim, hi the simple sentence unit "I swim in the summer," the complete
predicate includes the group of words in the summer along with the verb swim.
In the sentence Cal Ripkin slammed the ball over the fence for a home run,"
the complete predicate is slammed the ball over the fence for a home run.
Clauses, made up of their complete subjects and verbs, can be arranged
in a variety of patterns. The clauses may do any of the following things:
■ Stand alone (in simple sentences)
■ Be combined by coordination, showing equal importance for both
clauses (in compound sentences)
■ Be combined hierarchically by the use of subordination, showing that
one clause is more important than the other (in complex sentences)

Simple Sentences
The sentence patterns we use when we speak or write reflect the connections
of our thoughts, and these connections are influenced by the context in which
they occur. These sentence patterns also influence the thought connections of
our listeners and readers. So as writers, we need to be conscious of the sen¬
tence forms we use.
 Using Sentence Structure to Support Meaning 153

As an illustration, in the course of our discussion, the following situation

narrated by a traveler will be explained from three perspectives. These per¬
spectives illustrate the varying relationships of simple, coordinate, and sub¬
ordinate sentence forms with patterns of thinking. Here is the first version:

It was Memorial Day 1993 and a lovely time to take a leisurely trip up the coast. I
looked forward to the relaxing prospect ofbrozvsing around the lazy town and maybe
catching an old-time parade. As I drove along the scenic route, dividing my attention
between the gentle curves of the road and the spectacular view to my right, I came
upon a police car blocking the road. The officer standing outside his vehicle flagged
me off the road.
"Stop right here. No traffic's goin’ through," he told me.
"I just want to get into town."
"Then park yer car over there." (He pointed.) "Walk down that street. Take yer
first right. Then take a left. You'll be standing in Dock Square."
"Okay."
"Wait a minute, ma'am. Let me see yer handbag."
"What?"
"Well, he's givin' a speech in the square in just about an hour. We've got to check
everything." (He smiled.) "Hurry up now. You'll miss the whole thing."

In this account, the officer's "explanation" consists of simple sentences,

which are perfect stylistically to reflect the officer's brisk personality and to
account for some of the tourist's confusion, because each idea that the officer
expresses is separate. The officer's statements are not connected or related.
Notice that each simple sentence contains only one independent clause;
that is, one complete subject and one complete predicate. Remember that
both the complete subject and the complete predicate may contain a number
of words (and phrases) that enhance the meaning of the noun (as in your first
right) or the verb (as in givin' a speech in the square).

Coordinate and Subordinate Sentences

Language is rich and complex. Usually, sophisticated thinkers don't speak or
write only in simple sentences; they use more involved types of sentences as
well. Complexity of language goes hand in hand with complexity of thought.
Combining sentences in varied ways encourages thinking that joins and jux¬
taposes thoughts and ideas from various perspectives. It also helps readers to
see the connections the writer wishes them to make.
Coordinate (compound) sentences and subordinate (complex) sentences are
two types of sentence structure that the English language uses, and they are
common in both speech and writing. Coordinate sentences and subordinate
sentences both include more than one clause; each clause is composed of a
complete subject and a complete predicate. The difference between these two
major sentence types is the way in which the sentence units are connected to
each other.
 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

In coordinate sentences, neither clause is more important or carries more

weight in terms of the meaning of the whole sentence. Here are some examples:
Our dog's name is Harry, but we didn't name him.
Harry loves dog biscuits, and he eats them daily.
Let's see how coordinate sentence construction works in the continuing
narrative of our traveler's situation.

It was only a couple of minutes before I reached the center of town and spied an ap¬
pealing little restaurant, a sign proclaiming "Allison's'' over it—a perfect place for a
much-needed cup of coffee. As I made myself comfortable at a small window table, I
began to absorb the conversations going on around me.
"I heard Hillary put 'im up to it, and Barbara's mad as a wet hen.''
"Well, you know George. He's generous with his invitations, but he never
thought he'd hafta honor this one."
"Well, they're gonna be heah now, and George will hafta play second fiddle this
weekend."
"Ayuh. Same as he did last Novemba, and he can just like it or lump it!"

The conversation between local residents that our traveler overheard

was composed largely of coordinate sentences such as "Well, they're gonna
be heah now, and George will hafta play second fiddle this weekend" and "I
heard Hillary put 'im up to it, and Barbara's mad as a wet hen." Just as in the
case of the simple sentence, the degree of description in the noun or verb
phrase has nothing to do with making a sentence coordinate. A sentence is a
cooidinate sentence if it contains two or more clauses that carry the same
weight in the meaning of the entire sentence.
Coordinate sentence construction is often used to express a number of
important thinking patterns, which will be examined in Chapters 6-8 of this
book:

■ Chronological thinking patterns: relating events in time sequence

■ Process thinking patterns: relating aspects of the growth, development,
or change of an act, event, or object
■ Comparative thinking patterns: relating things in the same general cate¬
gory in terms of their similarities and dissimilarities
■ Causal thinking patterns: relating events not just in terms of chronology
but in terms of causes and effects

The following chart describes some of the language-thinking links between

these syntactic patterns and thinking patterns.

Language-Thinking Links
Syntactic Patterns (Connectors) Thinking Patterns
Sentence and, or, but, nor, either, Chronological, process,
coordination neither, like, as, -er, comparative, causal
more, similar to
 Using Sentence Structure to Support Meaning 155

In subordinate sentences, two or more clauses are joined in hierarchical re¬

lationships; that is, one clause is considered more important than the other(s)
to the meaning being expressed. One of the clauses always carries the main
idea or meaning of the sentence; the other clause or clauses add to or modify
that meaning.
When we got our dog, his name was Harry.
Harry is happy if we give him dog biscuits daily.
When we subordinate clauses, we are relating ideas so closely that they
rely on each other to express the full meaning of the sentence—the entire
meaning that the speaker or writer wants to convey. When we use subordi¬
nate sentences, we reveal the relationships of our thoughts to each other in a
specific way, just as we do with simple and coordinate sentences. In other
words, the syntax reflects and influences our thinking processes.
Let s examine the final explanation of the roadblock situation faced by
our traveler—this time in subordinate sentence form.

Hillary? Barbara? George? Then it clicked. This was Kennebunkport, the location
of the former president's summer house. He must have come Down East and invited
the new White House residents as his guests. Although as I left Allison's I could catch
only a glimpse of a black limousine winding through Dock Square, I could recognize
my situation in the article in the next day’s local newspaper.

Residents and Tourists Cram K'Port for Memorial

When media hype hit Kennebunkport during George Bush's first presidential
summer at Walker's Point, it drew even more vacationers than usual to a town that
has catered to tourists since the turn of the century. When George Bush lost the pres¬
idential election to Bill Clinton, the town resigned itself to a return to normalcy. This
weekend will undoubtedly stand out as its "Last Hurrah." Kennebunkport police of¬
ficer William Redman noted that traffic this weekend suggests the Clintons' visit
marks a historic event.
Monday morning, authorities blocked off roads so that no one would know which
route President Clinton was taking to Dock Square, where he was scheduled to de¬
liver the annual Memorial Day address. Increased concern with security required all
those who wanted to observe the holiday in town to have their handbags and packages
examined after parking their cars outside the commercial area. Despite minor incon¬
venience, all went smoothly, and townsfolk and visitors alike seemed to appreciate
presidential participation in a long-standing local tradition.

A sentence like "When media hype hit Kennebunkport during George Bush's
first presidential summer at Walker's Point, it drew even more vacationers
than usual to a town that has catered to tourists since the turn of the century"
uses subordination because it is composed of clauses that, although they all
contribute to the full meaning of the sentence, are unequal in importance. By
placing the idea of it (media hype) drew even more vacationers than usual to a
 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

town in the independent clause, the reporter made that idea the most impor¬
tant one in the sentence. By placing the idea that has catered to tourists since the
turn of the century in a subordinate clause, the reporter indicated that this idea
was less important, as was the idea when media hype hit Kennebunkport during
George Bush's first presidential summer at Walker's Point. By understanding sen¬
tence logic, the writer placed a spotlight on the most important idea of the
sentence.
Connections among sentence units in subordinate sentences often reflect
a number of important thinking concepts, such as the following:

■ Time concepts: relating things in time sequence

■ Condition concepts: relating events when the occurrence of one event
depends on the occurrence of another event
■ Causal concepts: relating events in terms of the way they are responsi¬
ble for bringing abou'others

In the sentence we have been examining, for example, the clause When media
hype hit Kennebunkport during George Bush's first presidential summer at Walker's
Point reflects an element of time. If the clause had read because media hype hit
Kennebunkport during George Bush's first presidential summer at Walker's Point, it
would have reflected an element of cause. The following chart demonstrates
the language-thinking links between subordinate linguistic forms and think¬
ing patterns.

Language-Thinking Links
Syntactic Patterns (Connectors) Thinking Patterns
S Subordination when, until, after, before, Chronological, process
Time since
S Subordination when, until, unless, if Comparative
Condition
S Subordination because, so, so that, since Causal
Cause

Sentence subordination is particularly significant because whenever we

change a connector (language-thinking link) or change the order of a sentence,
the focus of meaning and thinking expressed by the sentence also changes!
Review the three accounts of the Kennebunkport traveler and analyze them
by answering these questions:

■ How do the various syntactic forms influence the thoughts and actions
expressed?

■ What thinking patterns are linked to each of the different accounts?

V\ e hav e just examined some of the relationships between sentence struc¬
tures and thinking patterns. These relationships are abstract and require care¬
ful attention on the part of writers. The writer must first figure out what the
relationship is between ideas, then decide which sentence structure and con-
 Using Sentence Structure to Support Meaning 157

nector word will best convey that relationship to the reader. The revision
stage of the writing process is a good time to pay attention to these relation¬
ships. Some of the relationships may have been made explicit in the draft, but
if not, the writer can combine and revise sentences to make the relationships
easier for the reader to see and understand.

THINKING^* WRITING ACTIVITY 5.2

Creatins Complex Sentences

Combine the followins simple sentences into no more than four by usins co¬
ordination and subordination. You may delete words or change them if neces¬
sary for sentence sense, and you may change the order of the ideas presented,
for clarity, but you should not omit any ideas or change the sense of the sen¬
tences. Try to figure out the relationships between ideas and make those rela¬
tionships explicit with your sentence structure.
1. Two oil tankers were sighted in the Persian Gulf.
2. The UN declared a boycott of Iraqi oil.
3. The oil tankers were registered in Iraq.
4. Shots were fired across the bow.
5. The ships were told to stop for a search.
6. The ships continued on course.
7. A U.S. Navy frigate patrolled the Persian Gulf.
8. The U.S. frigate pursued the tankers until they reversed their course.

Effective Writing: Effective writing paints a picture in the mind of the reader.
158 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.3

Thinking Critically About Writing

Reread the writins you did for Thinking^-Writing Activity 5.1, the descrip¬
tion of a world without language. Identify sentences where you used coordi¬
nation and sentences where you used subordination to show relationships.
Then decide whether you used the best sentence structure and connector
words to show these relationships. Also, identify places where you could have
used subordination or coordination. Rewrite at least three of your sentences,
adjusting and improving the sentence structure to support your meaning.

Reading and Analyzing the Work of Others

The following selection is from Blue Highways, a book written by a young
man of Native American heritage. After losing his teaching job at a university
and separating from his wife, he decided to explore America. He outfitted his
van (named Ghost Dancing") and drove around the country using back
roads (represented on maps by blue lines) rather than superhighways. Dur¬
ing his travels, he saw fascinating sights, met intriguing people, and devel¬
oped some significant insights about himself. Read the passage carefully;
then do Thinking^Writing Activity 5.4.

from Blue Highways

by William Least Heat-Moon

Back at Ghost Dancing, I saw a camper had pulled up. On the rear end,
by the strapped-on aluminum chairs, was something like "The Wan¬
dering Watkins." Time to go. I kneeled to check a tire. A smelly furry
white thing darted from behind the wheel, and I flinched. Because of it,
the journey would change.
"Harmless as a stuffed toy." The voice came from the other end of the
leash the dog was on. "He's nearly blind and can't hear much better.
Down just to the nose now." The man, with polished cowboy boots and
a part measured out in the white hair, had a face so gullied even the Soil
Conservation Commission couldn't have reclaimed it. But his eyes
seemed lighted from within.
"Are you Mr. Watkins?" I asked.
"What's left of him. The pup's what's left of Bill. He's a Pekingese.
Chinese dog. In dog years, he's even older than I am, and I respect him
for that.We're two old men. What's your name?"
 Reading and Analyzing the Work of Others 159

"Same as the dog's."

"I wanted to give him a Chinese name, but old what's-her-face over
there in the camper wouldn't have it. Claimed she couldn't pronounce
Chinese names. I says. You can't say Lee?' She says, 'You going to name
a dog Lee?' 'No,' I says, 'but what do you think about White Fong?'
Now, she s not a reader unless it's a beauty parlor magazine with a
Kennedy or Hepburn woman on the cover, so she never understood the
name. You've read your Jack London, I hope. She says, 'When I was a
girl we had a horse called William, but that name's too big for that itty-
bitty dog. Just call him Bill. That was that. She's a woman of German
descent and a decided person. But when old Bill and I are out on our
own, I call him White Fong."
Watkins had worked in a sawmill for thirty years, then retired to
Redding; now he spent time in his camper, sometimes in the company
of Mrs. Watkins.
I d stay on the road, but what's-her-face won't have it."
As we talked, Mrs. What's-her-face periodically thrust her head from
the camper to call instructions to Watkins or White Fong. A finger-
wagging woman, full of injunctions for man and beast. Whenever she
called, I watched her, Watkins watched me, and the dog watched him.
Each time he would say, "Well, boys, there you have it. Straight from the
back of the horse."
"You mind if I swear?" I said I didn't. "The old biddy's in there with
her Morning Special—sugar doughnut, boysenberry jam, and a shot of
Canadian Club in her coffee. In this beauty she sits inside with her letters.
"What kind of work you in?" he asked.
That question again. "I'm out of work," I said to simplify.
"A man's never out of work if he's worth a damn. It's just sometimes
he doesn't get paid. I've gone unpaid my share and I've pulled my share
of pay. But that's got nothing to do with working. A man's work is do¬
ing what he's supposed to do, and that's why he needs a catastrophe
now and again to show him a bad turn isn't the end, because a bad
stroke never stops a good man's work. Let me show you my philosophy
of life." From his pressed Levi's he took a billfold and handed me a limp
business card. "Easy. It's very old."
The card advertised a cafe in Merced when telephone numbers were
four digits. In quotation marks was a motto: "Good Home Cooked
Meals."
"'Good Home Cooked Meals' is your philosophy?"
"Turn it over, peckerwood."
Imprinted on the back in tiny, faded letters was this:

I've been bawled out, balled up, held up, held down, hung up, bulldozed, black¬
jacked, walked on, cheated, squeezed and mooched; stuck for war tax, excess
profits tax, sales tax, dog tax, and syntax, Liberty Bonds, baby bonds, and the
bonds of matrimony, Red Cross, Blue Cross, and the double cross; I've worked
160 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

like hell, worked others like hell, have got drunk and got others drunk, lost all
I had, and now because I won't spend or lend what little I earn, beg, borrow or
steal, I've been cussed, discussed, boycotted, talked to, talked about, lied to, lied
about, worked over, pushed under, robbed, and damned near ruined. The only
reason I'm sticking around now is to see WHAT THE HELL IS NEXT
"I like it," I said.
Any man's true work is to get his boots on each morning. Curiosity
gets it done about as well as anything else."

THINKING-^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.4

Analyzing a Writing Passage

After reading the passage from Blue Highways, analyze the language Least Heat
Moon used. Make three columns on a page in your journal. Head them as fol¬
lows: Action Verbs, Concrete Nouns, and Vivid Adjectives. List at least six ex¬
amples of each from the reading.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.5

Writing and Asking for the Response of Others

Create your own description of an experience you have had while traveling.
Use language as effectively as possible to communicate the thoughts, feelings,
and impressions you are trying to share. Be conscious of your use of action
verbs, concrete nouns, and vivid adjectives. Ask other students to read your
description and identify examples of these. Then ask them for feedback on
ways to improve your description.

Using Language to Clarify Thinking

Language reflects thinking, and thinking is shaped by language. Previous
sections of this chapter have examined the creature we call language, which is
composed of small cells, or units, pieces of sound that combine to form larger
units called words. When words are combined into groups allowed by the
rules of the language to form sentences, the creature grows by leaps and
bounds. Various types of sentence structure not only provide multiple ways
of expressing the same ideas, thoughts, and feelings, but also help to struc¬
ture those thoughts, weaving into them nuances of focus. In turn, patterns of
thinking breathe life into language, giving both processes power.
The relationship between thinking and language is interactive; both pro-
 Using Language to Clarify Thinking 161

cesses are continually influencing each other in many ways. This is particularly
true m the case of language, as the writer George Orwell points out in the fol¬
lowing passage from his classic essay "Politics and the English Language":

A man may take a drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and

then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same
thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and
inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our
language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is
that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written En¬
glish, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be
avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of
these habits one can think more clearly.

Just as a drinker can fall into a cycle that keeps getting worse, so too can
language and thinking. When the use of language is sloppy—that is, vague,
general, indistinct, imprecise, foolish, inaccurate, and so on—it leads to
thinking of the same sort. And the reverse is also true. Clear and precise lan¬
guage leads to clear and precise thinking:

Clear Language: Clear Thinking:

Specific Specific
Distinct Distinct
Precise Precise
Accurate Accurate

The opposite of clear, effective language is language that fails to help the
reader picture or understand what we mean because it is vague or ambigu¬
ous. Most of us are guilty of using such ineffective language in speech ("It
was a great party!"), but for our college and work writing we need to be as
precise as possible. And our writing can gain clarity and power by our using
creative thinking skills to develop fresh, striking figures of speech to illumi¬
nate our ideas for readers.

Improving Vague Language

Although our ability to name and identify gives us the power to describe the
world in a precise way, we often tend to describe the world in words that are
imprecise and general. Such nonspecific words are rightly vague words. Con¬
sider the following sentences:

■ I had a nice time yesterday.

■ That is an interesting book.
■ She is an old person.
 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

In each of these cases, the italicized word does not give a precise description
of the thought, feeling, or experience that the writer or speaker is trying to
communicate. Its meaning is not clear and distinct. Vagueness occurs when¬
ever a word is used to represent an area of experience in such a way that the
area is not clearly defined.

Vague Word: a word that lacks a clear and distinct meaning.

Most words of general measurement—short, tall, big, small, heavy, light,

and so on—are vague. The exact meanings of these words depend on the spe¬
cific situation in which they are used and on the particular perspective of the
person using them. For example, give specific definitions for the following
words in italics by filling in the blanks. Then compare your responses with
those of other members of the class. Can you account for the differences in
meaning?

1. A middle-aged person is one who is_years old.

2. A tall person is one who is over_feet_inches tall.
3. It's cold when the temperature is_degrees.
4. A person is wealthy when he or she is worth_dollars.

Although the vagueness of general measurement terms can lead to con¬

fusion, other forms of vagueness are more widespread and often more prob¬
lematic. Terms such as good and enjoyable, for example, are imprecise and
unclear. Vagueness of this sort permeates every level of human discourse, un¬
dermines clear thinking, and is extremely difficult to combat. To use lan¬
guage clearly and precisely, you must develop an understanding of the way
language functions and commit yourself to breaking the entrenched habits of
vague expression.
For example, read the following opinion of a movie and circle all the
vague, general words that do not express a clear meaning.

Pulp Fiction is a really funny movie about some really unusual characters
hi California. The movie consists of several different stories that connect
up at different points. Some of the stories are nerve-wracking and others
are hilarious, but all of them are very well done. The plots are very inter¬
esting, and the main characters are excellent. I liked this movie a lot.

Because of the vague language in this passage, it expresses only general

approval—it does not explain in exact or precise terms what the experience
of seeing the movie was like. Thus, the writer of the passage is not successful
in communicating the experience.
Strong language-users have the gift of symbolizing their experiences so
clearly that you can actually relive those experiences with them. You can
identify with them, sharing the same thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that
 Using Language to Clarify Thinking 163

they had when they underwent (or imagined) the experience. Consider how
effectively the passage written by William Least Heat Moon on pages 158-
160 communicates the writer's thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
One useful strategy that journalists often use for clarifying vague lan¬
guage is to ask and try to answer the questions Who? What? Where? When?
How? Why? Let s see how this strategy applies to the vague movie review
you have just read.

■ Who were the people involved in the movie? (actors, director, producer,
characters portrayed)

■ What took place in the movie? (setting, events, plot development)

■ Where does the movie take place? (physical location, cultural setting)
■ When do the events in the movie take place? (historical situation)
■ How does the film portray its events? (How do the actors create their
characters? How does the director use film techniques to accomplish his
or her goals?)

■ Why do I have this opinion of the film? (For what reasons have I formed
the opinion?)

Even if we don't give an elaborate version of our thinking, we can still

communicate effectively by using language clearly and precisely. For exam¬
ple, examine this review summary of Pulp Fiction by the professional film
critic David Denby. Compare and contrast it with the earlier review.

An ecstatically entertaining piece of suave mockery by Quentin Taran¬

tino that revels in every manner of pulp flagrancy—murder and
betrayal, drugs, sex, and episodes of sardonically distanced sado¬
masochism—all told in three overlapping tales. It's a very funky, Amer¬
ican sort of pop masterpiece: improbable, uproarious, with bright colors
and danger and blood right on the surface.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.6

Writing a Movie Review

Write a review of a movie that you saw recently, concentratins on expressing
your ideas clearly and precisely. Use the following questions to guide your
analysis.

1. Who were the people involved with the movie?

2. What took place in the movie?
3. Where does the movie take place?
4. When do the events in the movie take place?
5. How does the film portray its events?
6. Why did you form this particular opinion about the film?
 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

Virtually all of us use vague language extensively in our day-to-day con¬

versations. In many cases, it is natural that your immediate reaction to an ex¬
perience would be fairly general ("That's nice," "She's interesting," etc.). If
you are truly concerned with sharp thinking and meaningful communica¬
tion, however, you should follow up these initial general reactions with a
more precise clarification of what you really mean.

■ I think that she is a nice person because ...

■ I think that he is a good teacher because ...
■ I think that this is an interesting class because ...

Vagueness is always a matter of degree. In fact, you can think of your de¬
scriptive/informative use of language as falling somewhere on a scale be¬
tween extreme generality and extreme specificity. For example, the following
statements move from the general to the specific.

General
She is really smart.
She does well in school.
She gets straight A's.
'' She earned an A+ in physics
Specific

Although different situations require various degrees of specificity,

you should work at becoming increasingly precise in your use of lan¬
guage. For example, examine the following response to the assignment
"Describe what you think about the school you are attending." Circle the
vague words.

I really like it a lot. It's a very good school. The people are nice and the
teachers are interesting. There are a lot of different things to do, and stu¬
dents have a good time doing them. Some of the courses are pretty hard,
but if you study enough, you should do all right.

Notice how general the passage is. The writer says, for example, that "the
people are nice," but gives no concrete and specific descriptions of why he
thinks the people are nice. The writer would have been more specific if he
had used statements such as the following:

■ Everyone says hello.

■ The students introduced themselves to me in class.
■ I always feel welcome in the student lounge.
■ The teachers take a special interest in each student.

Although these statements are more precise than saying, "The people are
nice," they can also be made more specific. To illustrate this, create more spe¬
cific descriptions for each of these statements.
 Using Language to Clarify Thinking 165

Improvins Ambiguous Language

Ambiguity is another obstacle to clear expression of your thoughts and feel¬
ings. We have noted that words are used to represent various areas of expe¬
rience. We sometimes make the mistake of thinking that each word stands for
one distinct area of experience—an object, thought, or feeling. In fact, a word
may represent various areas of experience and so have a number of different
meanings. When a word has more than one distinct meaning and we are not
sure which meaning is being intended, we say that the word is ambiguous. For
example, the word rich can mean having a large amount of money (like a mil¬
lionaire), or it can mean having lots of sugar and calories (like chocolate
cream pie). Thus, rich is a potentially ambiguous word.

Ambiguous Word: a word having more than one meaning and

therefore open to different interpretations.

How do you know which of its multiple meanings an ambiguous word

is mtended to convey? Usually you can tell by how the word is used—by the
situation, or context, in which it is employed. When someone asks if you are
rich/' you can be fairly certain that the person is not asking if you are full of
sugar and calories. As an example, give at least two meanings for the follow¬
ing potentially ambiguous words.

exercise critical major bar cool

Groups of words, also, can be ambiguous. If someone tells you, "I hope
you get what you deserve!" you may not be sure whether the speaker is wish-
irtg you well, or ill, unless the context of the remark makes his or her inten¬
tion clear.

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 5.7

Analyzing Ambiguity
Think of two meanings for each of the following sentences. Then rewrite each
sentence twice in ways which will eliminate any ambiguity.
■ He fed her dog biscuits.
■ The duck is ready to eat.
■ Flying planes can be dangerous.
■ The shooting of the hunter disturbed him.
166 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

Thinking Passage: The Crash of Avianca Flight 52

Using language imprecisely can lead to miscommunication, sometimes with
disastrous results. For example, on January 29, 1990, an Avianca Airlines
flight from Colombia, South America, to New York City crashed, killing
seventy-three persons. After circling Kemiedy Airport for 45 minutes, the
plane ran out of fuel before it could land, apparently the result of imprecise
communication between the pilot and the air traffic controllers. Read the fol¬
lowing excerpts from the New York Times account of the incident on January
30,1990; then answer the questions that follow.

An Account of Avianca Flight 52

The Federal Aviation Administration today defended the controllers
who guided a Colombian jetliner toward Kennedy International Air¬
port, releasing the first verbatim transcripts of communication in the
hour before the jet crashed. The officials suggested that the plane's pi¬
lot should have used more precise language, such as the word "emer¬
gency," in telling controllers how seriously they were short of fuel. They
made the statements a day after Federal investigators said that regional
controllers never told local controllers the plane was short of fuel and
had asked for priority clearance to land.
The transcripts show that the crew of Avianca Flight 52 told regional
controllers about 45 minutes before the plane crashed that "we would
run out of fuel" if the plane was redirected to Boston instead of being
given priority to land at Kennedy. The crew said it would be willing to
continue in its holding pattern 40 miles south of Kennedy for "about
five minutes—that's all we can do" before the plane would have to
move onward to Kennedy. But the regional controllers who gave that
message to the local controllers who were to guide the plane on its final
descent to Kennedy did not tell them that there was a problem with fuel
supplies on the jet or that the plane had requested priority handling, the
transcripts recorded by the FAA confirmed.
Taken by itself, the information that the plane could circle for just five
more minutes would not make the immediate danger of the plane clear
to the local controllers. Without being told that the plane did not have
enough fuel to reach Boston or that its crew had asked for priority clear¬
ance, the local controllers might have assumed that it had reached a point
where it could still land with adequate reserves of fuel still on board.
Despite the apparent lapse in communications among controllers, an
FAA spokesman said they acted properly because the plane's crew had
not explicitly declared a fuel emergency. An emergency would require
immediate clearance to land.
5 R. Steve Bell, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Asso¬
ciation, called the safety board's statement during its inquiry "highly
 Using Figurative Language 167

misleading and premature." Mr. Bell, in a statement issued today, said

the pilots of the plane should have made known to controllers the ex¬
tent of their problem in order to obtain immediate clearance to land the
plane. The Avianca pilot never declared a 'fuel emergency' or 'minimum
fuel, both of which would have triggered an emergency response by con¬
trollers," he said. "Stating that you are low on fuel does not imply an im¬
mediate problem. In addition, this information would not necessarily be
transmitted when one controller hands off to another."

Chronology of final minutes of Flight 52:

8:00 P.M.: Forty miles south of Kennedy, Avianca Flight 52 is delayed for
46 minutes, after earlier delays of 16 minutes over Norfolk, Va., and
27 minutes farther north.
8:46 P.M.: The plane's crew tells regional air controllers in Islip, L.I., that
they have a low-fuel problem. Regional controllers immediately re¬
lease the plane from its holding pattern, passing it to local controllers
in Garden City, L.I.
9:24 p.m.: First landing attempt at Kennedy is aborted and jet circles. Pi¬
lot twice tells Kennedy tower that he is low on fuel.
9:32 p.m.: Pilot tells tower while circling: "Two engines lost"; he also
says that he is very short on fuel.
9:35 p.m.: The plane crashes.

THINKING <-► WRITING ACTIVITY 5.8

Analyzing the Crash of Avianca Flight 52

Write the answers to the following questions in your journal.

1. If the pilot of the airplane were alive (all crew died in the crash), how do
you think he would analyze the cause of the crash?
2. How did the air traffic controllers and the FAA analyze the cause of the
crash?
3. What do you consider the cause of the crash? What are the reasons for your
conclusion?
4. Describe a situation that you were involved in, or that you heard about, in
which a serious misunderstanding resulted from an ambiguous use of lan¬
guage.

Using Figurative Language

Thus far in this section, we have been concerned with saying and writing ex¬
actly what we mean, in as precise a way as possible. There is another, different
168 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

way to use language to express our thinking: to say something we do not lit¬
erally mean. When we do this effectively our readers understand that we do
not mean to be taken literally but that we are speakingfiguratively, using a fig¬
ure of speech. There are many different figures of speech; some literary experts
have identified as many as 250. Here, though, we will focus on two with
which you may already be familiar: simile and metaphor.
Both simile and metaphor are based on a special kind of comparative
thinking called analogy. Analogy involves a limited comparison between two
essentially unlike things. Analogies are different from the more common
comparisons that involve examining the similarities and differences of two
items in the same general category such as two items on a menu or two meth¬
ods of birth control. Similes and metaphors focus on unexpected likenesses
between items from different categories. Thus, when we compare a baby's
mouth to a rose, we may be calling attention to the color or softness of the
mouth, but we are not suggesting that the mouth has thorns or that it attracts
bees. Chapter 7, Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspec¬
tives, will have more to say about analogies.
The goal of figures of speech based on analogy is to clarify or illuminate
a concept from one category by saying that in one or more limited ways, it is
the same as a concept from a very different category. Consider the following
example: °

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more....

—Shakespeare, Macbeth

In this famous metaphor, Shakespeare is comparing two things that at first

seem to have nothing in common: life and an actor. Yet a close look shows
that even though they are unlike in many ways, there are some undeniable
snnilarities between them. (What are some of the similarities?)
We ourselves often create and use similes and metaphors to make a
point. Using them appropriately can help you communicate better. That is
particularly important when you have trouble finding the right words to rep¬
resent your experiences. Powerful or complex emotions can make you
speechless or make you say things like "Words cannot describe what I feel."
Imagine that you are trying to describe your feelings of love and caring for
another person. You might compare your emotions to "the first rose of
spring," noting the following similarities:

■ Like the first rose, this is the first great love of my life.
■ Like the fragile yet supple petals of the rose, my feelings are tender and
sensitive.

Remember, however, that you are dealing with a limited comparison You
would not want anyone to think, "Like the rose, that love will die after a
 Using Figurative Language 169

week"! Readers who are familiar with similes and metaphors will not make
that mistake.
Another favorite subject for similes and metaphors is the idea of the
meaning or purpose of life, which the simple use of the word life does not
communicate. You have just seen Shakespeare's comparison of life to an ac¬
tor. Here are some other popular metaphors involving life. What are some
points of similarity in each?

■ Life is just a bowl of cherries.

■ Life is a football game.
■ Life is like a box of chocolates.
■ [Life] is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Sienifvine
nothing."—Shakespeare

Create a metaphor for life representing some of your feelings, and explain the
points of similarity:
■ Life is ...

Distinguishing Similes and Metaphors

From the examples discussed so far, you can see that these figures of speech
have two parts: an original subject and a compared subject (what the original is
being likened to). In comparing your love to the first rose of spring, the orig¬
inal subject is your feelings of love and caring for someone; the compared sub¬
ject is what you are comparing those feelings to in order to describe
them—namely, the first rose of spring.
The connection between the original subject and the compared subject
can be either obvious (explicit) or implied (implicit). For example, you can
echo the lament of the great pool hustler Minnesota Fats and say, "A pool
player in a tuxedo is like a hotdog with whipped cream on it." This is a sim¬
ile because it explicitly notes the connection between the original subject
(man in tuxedo) and the compared subject (hotdog with whipped cream) by
using the comparative term like.

Simile: an explicit, effective comparison between basically

dissimilar things.

You can also use other forms of obvious comparison, such as is similar to, re¬
minds me of or makes me think of. Or you could say, "A pool player in a tuxedo
is a hotdog with whipped cream on it." In this case, you are creating a
metaphor because you have not included any words that point out that you
are making a comparison. Instead, you are stating that the original subject is
the compared subject. (Most people will understand that you are making a
170 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

limited comparison between two different things, not describing a biological

transformation.)

Metaphor: an implied, effective comparison between basically

dissimilar things.

Use your creative thinking skills to create a simile for a subject of your own
choosing, noting at least two points of comparison.
Subject
1.
2.
Now use your creative thinking skills to create a metaphor (implied analogy)
for a subject of your own choosing, noting at least two points of comparison.
Subject
1.
2.
A final point about figurative language is that it does need to be fresh.
He runs like a deer and I slept like a baby” were wonderful similes the
first time they were used, but they have become old and tired: cliches. Use
your creative thinking skills to write fresh, striking figures of speech.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.9

Analyzing "I Have a Dream”

Very skillful speakers and writers are able to weave similes and metaphors to¬
gether into a striking tapestry. Read the following selection by Martin Luther
King, Jr. Then respond to these questions in your journal.

1. List at least four different similes or metaphors that King uses.

2. Pick one of these similes or metaphors and trace it throughout the speech-
that is, list each time it occurs.
3. Why, do you think, did King use these figures of speech? What effect do they
have on you? Do you think they had the same effect on his listeners?

from I Have a Dream

by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we

stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree
came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who
 Using Figurative Language 171

had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous

daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Ne¬
gro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still
sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of dis¬
crimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island
of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hun¬
dred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of Ameri¬
can society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come
here today to dramatize an appalling condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When
the architects in our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Con¬
stitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a
promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was
a promise that all men would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory
note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring
this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad
check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But
we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to
believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of oppor¬
tunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check—a check
that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security
of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America
of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of
cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drugs of gradualism. Now is
the time to make real the promises of Democracy. Now is the time to rise
from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of
racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of
God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands
of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the mo¬
ment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This swel¬
tering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until
there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an
end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow
off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the na¬
tion returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tran¬
quillity in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The
whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our na¬
tion until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the
warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of
gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let
172 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of
bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high
plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest
to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to
the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The mar¬
velous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must
not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white broth¬
ers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that
their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextrica¬
bly bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march
ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devo¬
tees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satis¬
fied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of
police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy
with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the high¬
ways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the
Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can
never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a
Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no,
we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down
like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great
trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail
cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom
left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the
winds of police brutality. Tou have been the veterans of creative suffer¬
ing. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is re¬
demptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Car¬
olina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums
and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation
can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frus¬
trations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted
in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the
true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that
all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of for¬
mer slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down
together at the table of brotherhoood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert
state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be trans¬
formed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
 Using Figurative Language 173

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a na¬
tion where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character.
15 I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's
lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullifi¬
cation, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and
black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white
girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill
and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain,
and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord
shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South.
With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a
stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling
discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With
this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle
together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, know¬
ing that we will be free one day.
20 This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing
with new meaning:
My country, 'tis of thee. Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing: Land
where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride. From every moun¬
tain-side Let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let
freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let free¬
dom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring
from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
25 But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From
every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and
every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed
up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews
and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and
sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last!
thank God almighty, we are free at last!"
174 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

Using Language in Social Contexts

Language Styles
Language is always used in a context. We always speak or write with a per¬
son or a group of people in mind. The person may be only oneself; the group
may be made up of friends, coworkers, or strangers. Moreover, we always
use language in a particular situation. We converse with friends, meet with
the boss, or carry out a business transaction with the bank or supermarket. In
each situation, we use the appropriate language style. For example, describe
how you usually greet the following people when you see them;
A teacher
A parent
An employer
A good friend
A waiter/waitress
When greeting a friend, you are likely to say something like "Hey, Richard,
how's it going?" "Hi, Sue, good to see ya." When greeting your employer,
however, or even a coworker, something more like "Good morning, Mrs.
Jones," or "Hello, Dan, how are you this morning?" is in order. The two dif¬
ferent contexts, personal friendship and the workplace, call for different lan¬
guage responses. In a working environment, no matter how frequently we
interact with coworkers or employers, our language style tends to be more
formal and less abbreviated than it is with personal friends. Conversely, the
more familiar we are with someone, the better we know him or her, the more
abbreviated the style of language will be in that context, for you share a vari¬
ety of ideas, opinions, and experiences with that person. The language style
identifies this shared thinking and consequently restricts the group of people
who can communicate within this context.
All of us belong to social groups in which we use styles that separate "in¬
siders" from "outsiders." When you use an abbreviated style of language
with a friend, you are identifying that person as a friend and sending a social
message that says, I know you very well; I can assume many common per¬
spectives between us." When you speak to someone at the office in a more
elaborate language style, you send a different social message: "I know you
within a particular context (this workplace), and I can assume only certain
common perspectives between us."
In this way we use language to identify the social context and to define
the relationship between the people communicating. Language styles vary
from informal, in which we abbreviate not only sentence structure but also the
sounds that form words—as in ya in the example—to increasingly formal, in
which we use more complex sentence structure as well as complete words in
terms of sound patterns.
 Using Language in Social Contexts 175

The language style called for in academic and most workplace writing is
called Standard American English (SAE). SAE follows the rules and conventions
given in handbooks and taught in school. The ability to use SAE marks a per¬
son as part of an educated group who understands how and when to use it.

Slang
Read the following dialogue; then rewrite it in your own style.

Girl 1: "Hey, did you see that new guy? He's a dime. I mean, really diesel."
Girl 2: "All the guys in my class are busted. They are tore up from the floor
up. Punks, crackheads, lowlifes. Let's exit. There's a jam tonight that
is going to be the bomb, really fierce. I've got to hit the books so that
I'll still have time to chill."

How would you describe the style of the original dialogue? How would you
describe the style of your version of the dialogue? The linguist Shoshana
Hoose writes:

As any teen will tell you, keeping up with the latest slang takes a lot of
work. New phrases sweep into town faster than greased lightning, and
they are gone just as quickly. Last year's "hoser" is this year's "dweeb"
(both meaning somewhat of a "nerd"). Some slang consists of everyday
words that have taken a new, hip meaning. "Mega" for instance, was
used mainly by astronomers and mathematicians until teens adopted it
as a way of describing anything great, cool, and unbelievable. Others are
words such as gag that seem to have naturally evolved from one mean¬
ing (to throw up) to another (a person or thing that is gross to the point of
making one want to throw up). And then there are words that come from
movies, popular music, and the media. "Rambo," the macho movie char¬
acter who singlehandedly defeats whole armies, has come to mean a
muscular, tough, adventurous boy who wears combat boots and fatigues.

As linguists have long known, cultures create the most words for the
things that preoccupy them the most. For example, Eskimos have been re¬
ported to have more than seventy-six words for ice and snow, and Hawaiians
can choose from scores of variations on the word water. Most teenage slang
falls into one or two categories: words meaning "cool" and words meaning
"out of it." Persons considered really out of it have been described as nerds,
goobers, geeks, fades, or pinheads, to name just a few possibilities.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.10

Analyzing Slang
Review the slang terms and definitions in the following glossary. How do your
terms match up? For each term, list a word that you use, or have heard of, to
mean the same thing.
 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

Word: your U xd: Meaning:

dime, buff, diesel Sood-looking guy
phat, shorty, fly, all that good-looking (girl)
busted gross, disgusting
punk someone who hangs out
hip, fierce cool, awesome
the bomb really cool
triflins showoff
played stupid, out-of-date
exit, be out, step off leave
If your meaninss did not match those i the glossary, or if you did not recog¬
nize some of the words in the slossary, ’ hat do you think was the main reason?

Slang, while creative and entertaining, is a restrictive style of language in

that it limits its users to a particular group. As Hoose points out, age is usu¬
ally the determining factor in using slang. But there are special forms of slang
that are not determined by age; rather, they are determined by profession or
interest group. Let's look at this other type of language style.

Jargon
Jargon is made up of words, expressions, and technical terms that are intelli¬
gible to professional circles or interest groups but not to the general public.
Consider the following interchanges:
1. A: Breaker 1-9. Com'on, Little Frog.
B: Roger and back to you, Charley.
A: You got to back down, you got a Smokey ahead.
B: I can't afford to feed the bears this week. Better stay at 5-5 now.
A: That's a big 10-4.
B: I'm gonna cut the coax now.
2. OK Al, number six takes two eggs, wreck 'em, with a whiskey down and
an Adam and Eve on a raft. Don't forget the Jack Tommy, express to Cali¬
fornia.
3. Please take further notice, that pursuant to and in accordance with Article n.
Paragraphs Second and Fifteenth of the aforesaid Proprietary Lease Agree-
ment, you are obligated to reimburse Lessor for any expense Lessor incurs
including legal fees in instituting any action or proceeding due to a default
of your obligations as contained in the Proprietary Lease Agreement.

Word meaning in the three items is shared by (1) CB radio operators, (2)
restaurant and diner cooks, and (3) attorneys.

Dialects
Within the boundaries of geographical regions and ethnic groups, the form of
a language used may be so different from the usual (or standard) in terms of
its sound patterns, vocabulary, and sentence structure that it cannot be
 Using Language in Social Contexts 177

understood by people outside the specific regional or ethnic group. Here, we

are no longer referring to variations in language style; we are referring to dis¬
tinct dialects. Consider these sentences from three different dialects of English:

Dialect A: Dats allabunch of byoks at de license bureau. He fell out de rig

and broke his leg boon.
Dialect B: My teacher she said I passed on the skin of my teeth. My sisters
and them up there talkin' 'bout I should stayed back.
Dialect C: I went out to the garden to pick the last of them Kentucky Wonder
pole beans of mine, and do you know, there on the grass was just a
little mite of frost.

Though you can recognize these sentences as English, you may not rec¬
ognize all the words, sentence structures, and sound patterns that the speak¬
ers used. Dialects differ from language styles not only in being restricted to
geographical or ethnic groups, but also in varying from the standard lan¬
guage to a greater degree than language styles do. Dialects vary not only in
words but also in sound patterns and in syntax. In the following three exam¬
ples of dialect, how do the sound patterns, vocabulary, and sentence struc¬
ture differ from that of standard English?
1. Ah don lak to fly in dem big jet arrowpleen. Dey had a bad wreck on de hairline.
Tie loose de boat!
2. I can skate better than Lois and I be only eight. If you begoin' real fast, hold it. You
be goin, too fast, well, you don't be in the ring. You be outside if you be goin, too
fast. That man he a clip you up. I think they call him Sonny.
3. A: Mornin' Alf, ow're yer goin?
B: Not bad, me oT mate, not bad. Ozu's yerself?
A: Oh, same as usual, can't complain.
B: 'Ow much are yer Herberts then?
A: To you me oT son, an Alan Whicker for a bag.
B: Gawdelpus! An Alan Whicker! Yer goin' orf yer head. That's too dear. I'll give
yer ten bob, not a penny more.
A: Alrigh, mate—let's not have a bull and cow—gimme the bees and honey and
take yer bag of Herberts.
B: Cheers! An give me regards to yer carving knife.

Can you interpret the meaning conveyed by each passage? What words or
syntactic forms contributed to any difficulty you may have had in interpret¬
ing meaning? If you speak a dialect, write one or two sentences in that dialect
and share them with your classmates. How does your dialect vary from the
standard in terms of words and syntactic forms?
Of course, many people are not limited to one form of English. They are
"bilingual" in that they can switch from using a dialect fluently to using Stan¬
dard American English fluently. Such speakers often report, in fact, that their
ability to use several forms of the language gives them great pleasure and an
enhanced perspective on experience.
178 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

So far in this section, we have noted that almost all of us have different
language styles that we use on different occasions, and that some of us even
have a variety of dialects which are expressed in our speech and writing. It is
important to consider that the language you use and the way you use it serve
as important clues to your social identity. For example, dialect identifies your
geographical area or group; slang marks your age group and subculture; and
jargon often identifies your occupation or other areas of interest.
The connection between language and thought, in both speech and writ¬
ing, turns language into a powerful social force that separates us as well as
binds us together. Social dimensions of language are important influences in
shaping our responses to others. Sometimes the social dimensions of lan¬
guage can trigger stereotypes we hold about someone's interests, social class,
intelligence, personal attributes, and so on. When we fall into stereotyping,
we are not thinking critically. The ability to think critically gives us the insight
and the intellectual ability to distinguish people's language use from their in¬
dividual qualities, to correct inaccurate beliefs about people, and to avoid
stereotypical responses in the future. These insights contribute to enlight¬
ened relationships with others, and provide guidence for our spoken and
written use of language.

THINKING ^WRITING ACTIVITY 5.11

Thinking About Language Styles and Dialects

Write responses to the following questions in your journal.

1. Describe examples, drawn from individuals in your personal experience, of

each of the following: dialect, jargon, and slang.
2. Describe your immediate responses to the examples you just provided. For
example, what is your immediate response to someone speaking in each of
the dialects on pages 176-177? to someone with a British accent? someone
speaking “computerese"? to someone speaking a slang that you don't un¬
derstand?
3. Analyze the responses you just described. How did they get formed? Does
each represent an accurate understanding of a person, or a stereotyped belief?
4. Identify strategies for using critical thinking abilities to overcome inaccurate
and inappropriate responses to others based on their language usage.

Thinking Passage: Gender Differences in Language

Recently gender differences in language use have reached the forefront of so¬
cial research, even though variation in language use between the sexes has
been observed for centuries. Proverbs such as “A woman's tongue wags like a
 Thinking Passage: Gender Differences in Language 179

lamb's tail" historically attest to supposed differences—usually alleged inferi¬

orities—in women's speech and, by implication, in their thinking, as opposed
to men's. Vocabulary, swearing and taboo language, pronunciation, and ver¬
bosity have all been pointed to as contexts that illustrate gender differences in
language. Only within the last two decades, however, have scholars of the so¬
cial use of language paid serious attention to variation between men's and
women's language and to social factors that contribute to these differences.
The following excerpt from the work of Deborah Tannen reflects current inter¬
est in sociolinguistic variations between women and men. After reading the se¬
lection, respond to Thinking-^Writing Activity 5.12 on page 183.

from Sex, Lies and Conversation

Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women
to Talk to Each Other?
by Deborah Tannen

I was addressing a small gathering in a suburban Virginia living

room—a women's group that had invited men to join them. Through¬
out the evening, one man had been particularly talkative, frequently of¬
fering ideas and anecdotes, while his wife sat silently beside him on the
couch. Toward the end of the evening, I commented that women fre¬
quently complain that their husbands don't talk to them. This man
quickly concurred. He gestured toward his wife and said, "She's the
talker in our family." The room burst into laughter; the man looked puz¬
zled and hurt. "It's true," he explained. "When I come home from work
I have nothing to say. If she didn't keep the conversation going, we'd
spend the whole evening in silence."
This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend
to talk more than women in public situations, they often talk less at
home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with marriage.
The pattern was observed by political scientist Andrew Hacker in the
late '70s. Sociologist Catherine Kohler Riessman reports in her new
book Divorce Talk that most of the women she interviewed—but only a
few of the men—gave lack of communication as the reason for their
divorces. Given the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent, that
amounts to millions of cases in the United States every year—a virtual
epidemic of failed conversation.
In my own research, complaints from women about their husbands
most often focused not on tangible inequities such as having given up
the chance for a career to accompany a husband to his, or doing far
more than their share of daily life-support work like cleaning, cooking,
social arrangements and errands. Instead, they focused on communica¬
tion: "He doesn't listen to me," "He doesn't talk to me." I found, as
Hacker observed years before, that most wives want their husbands to
Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

be, first and foremost, conversational partners, but few husbands share
this expectation of their wives.
In short, the image that best represents the current crisis is the stereo¬
typical cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast table with a news¬
paper held up in front of his face, while a woman glares at the back of
it, wanting to talk.

Linguistic Battle of Sexes

How can women and men have such different impressions of commu¬
nication in marriage? Why the widespread imbalance in their interests
and expectations?
In the April issue of American Psychologist, Stanford University's
Eleanor Maccoby reports the results of her own and others' research
showing that children's development is most influenced by the social
structure of peer interactions. Boys and girls tend to play with children
of their own gender, and their sex-separate groups have different orga¬
nizational structures and interactive norms.
I believe these systematic differences in childhood socialization
make talk between women and men like cross-cultural communication,
heir to all the attraction and pitfalls of that enticing but difficult enter¬
prise. My research on men's and women's conversations uncovered
patterns similar to those described for children's groups.
For women, as for girls, intimacy is the fabric of relationships, and
talk is the thread from which it is woven. Little girls create and main¬
tain friendships by exchanging secrets; similarly, women regard con¬
versation as the cornerstone of friendship. So a woman expects her
husband to be a new and improved version of a best friend. What is im¬
portant is not the individual subjects that are discussed but the sense of
closeness, a life shared, that emerges when people tell their thoughts,
feelings, and impressions.
Bonds between boys can be as intense as girls', but they are based
less on talking, more on doing things together. Since they don't assume
talk is the cement that binds a relationship, men don't know what kind
of talk women want, and they don't miss it when it isn't there.
Boys' groups are larger, more inclusive, and more hierarchical, so boys
must struggle to avoid the subordinate position in the group. This may
play a role in women's complaints that men don't listen to them. Some
men really don't like to listen, because being the listener makes them feel
one-down, like a child listening to adults or an employee to a boss.
But often when women tell men, "You aren't listening," and the men
protest, "I am," the men are right. The impression of not listening re¬
sults from misalignments in the mechanics of conversation. The mis-
alignment begins as soon as a man and a woman take physical
positions. This became clear when I studied videotapes made by psy¬
chologist Bruce Dorval of children and adults talking to their same-sex
 Thinking Passage: Gender Differences in Language 181

best friends. I found that at every age, the girls and women faced each
other directly, their eyes anchored on each other's faces. At every age,
the boys and men sat at angles to each other and looked elsewhere in
the room, periodically glancing at each other. They were obviously at¬
tuned to each other, often mirroring each other's movements. But the
tendency of men to face away can give women the impression they
aren't listening even when they are. A young woman in college was
frustrated: Whenever she told her boyfriend she wanted to talk to him,
he would lie down on the floor, close his eyes, and put his arm over his
face. This signaled to her, "He's taking a nap." But he insisted he was
listening extra hard. Normally, he looks around the room, so he is eas¬
ily distracted. Lying down and covering his eyes helped him concen¬
trate on what she was saying.
Analogous to the physical alignment that women and men
take in conversation is their topical alignment. The girls in my study
tended to talk at length about one topic, but the boys tended to jump
from topic to topic. Girls exchanged stories about people they knew.
The second-grade boys teased, told jokes, noticed things in the room
and talked about finding games to play. The sixth-grade girls talked
about problems with a mutual friend. The sixth-grade boys talked
about 55 different topics, none of which extended over more than a few
turns.

Listening to Body Language

Switching topics is another habit that gives women the impression men
aren't listening, especially if they switch to a topic about themselves.
But the evidence of the lOth-grade boys in my study indicates other¬
wise. The lOth-grade boys sprawled across their chairs with bodies par¬
allel and eyes straight ahead, rarely looking at each other. They looked
as if they were riding in a car, staring out the windshield. But they were
talking about their feelings. One boy was upset because a girl had told
him he had a drinking problem, and the other was feeling alienated
from all his friends.
Now, when a girl told a friend about a problem, the friend responded
by asking probing questions and expressing agreement and understand¬
ing. But the boys dismissed each other's problems. Todd assured Richard
that his drinking was "no big problem" because "sometimes you're
funny when you're off your butt." And when Todd said he felt left out,
Richard responded, "Why should you? You know more people than me."
Women perceive such responses as belittling and unsupportive. But
the boys seemed satisfied with them. Whereas women reassure each
other by implying, "You shouldn't feel bad because I've had similar ex¬
periences," men do so by implying, "You shouldn't feel bad because
your problems aren't so bad."
There are even simpler reasons for women's impression that men
Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

don't listen. Linguist Lynette Hirschman found that women make more
listener-noise, such as "mhm," "uhuh," and "yeah," to show "I'm with
you." Men, she found, more often give silent attention. Women who ex¬
pect a stream of listener-noise interpret silent attention as no attention
at all.
Women s conversational habits are as frustrating to men as men's are
to women. Men who expect silent attention interpret a stream of
listener-noise as overreaction or impatience. Also, when women talk to
each other in a close, comfortable setting, they often overlap, finish each
other's sentences and anticipate what the other is about to say. This
practice, which I call "participatory listenership," is often perceived by
men as interruption, intrusion and lack of attention.
A parallel difference caused a man to complain about his wife, "She
just wants to talk about her own point of view. If I show her another
view, she gets mad at me." When most women talk to each other, they
assume a conversationalist's job is to express agreement and support.
But many men see their conversational duty as pointing out the other
side of an argument. This is heard as disloyalty by women, and refusal
to offer the requisite support. It is not that women don't want to see
other points of view, but that they prefer them phrased as suggestions
and inquiries rather than as direct challenges.
In his book Fighting for Life, Walter Ong points out that men use "ag¬
onistic," or warlike, oppositional formats to do almost anything; thus
discussion becomes debate, and conversation a competitive sport. In
contrast, women see conversation as a ritual means of establishing rap¬
port. If Jane tells a problem and June says she has a similar one, they
walk away feeling closer to each other. But this attempt at establishing
rapport can backfire when used with men. Men take too literally
women's ritual "trouble talk," just as women mistake men's ritual chal¬
lenges for real attack.

The Sounds of Silence

These differences begin to clarify why women and men have such dif¬
ferent expectations about communication in marriage. For women, talk
creates intimacy. Marriage is an orgy of closeness: you can tell your feel¬
ings and thoughts, and still be loved. Their greatest fear is being pushed
away. But men live in a hierarchical world, where talk maintains inde¬
pendence and status.They are on guard to protect themselves from be¬
ing put down and pushed around.
This explains the paradox of the talkative man who said of his silent
wife, "She's the talker." In the public setting of a guest lecture, he felt
challenged to show his intelligence and display his understanding of
the lecture. But at home, where he has nothing to prove and no one to
defend against, he is free to remain silent. For his wife, being home
 Thinking Passage: Gender Differences in Language 183

means she is free from the worry that something she says might offend
someone, or spark disagreement, or appear to be showing off; at home
she is free to talk.
The communication problems that endanger marriage can't be fixed
by mechanical engineering. They require a new conceptual framework
about the role of talk in human relationships. Many of the psychologi¬
cal explanations that have become second nature may not be helpful,
because they tend to blame either women (for not being assertive
enough) or men (for not being in touch with their feelings). A sociolin-
guistic approach by which male-female conversation is seen as cross-
cultural communication allows us to understand the problem and forge
solutions without blaming either party.
Once the problem is understood, improvement comes naturally, as it
did to the young woman and her boyfriend who seemed to go to sleep
when she wanted to talk. Previously, she had accused him of not listen¬
ing, and he had refused to change his behavior, since that would be ad¬
mitting fault. But then she learned about and explained to him the
differences in women's and men's habitual ways of aligning themselves
in conversation. The next time she told him she wanted to talk, he be¬
gan, as usual, by lying down and covering his eyes. When the familiar
negative reaction bubbled up, she reassured herself that he really was
listening. But then he sat up and looked at her. Thrilled, she asked why.
He said, "You like me to look at you when you talk, so I'll try to do it."
Once he saw their differences as cross-cultural rather than right and
wrong, he independently altered his behavior.
25 Women who feel abandoned and deprived when their husbands won't
listen to or report daily news may be happy to discover their husbands
trying to adapt once they understand the place of small talk in women's
relationships. But if their husbands don't adapt, the women may still be
comforted that for men, this is not a failure of intimacy. Accepting the dif¬
ference, the wives may look to their friends or family for that kind of talk.
And husbands who can't provide it shouldn't feel their wives have made
unreasonable demands. Some couples will still decide to divorce, but at
least their decisions will be based on realistic expectations.
In these times of resurgent ethnic conflicts, the world desperately
needs cross-cultural understanding. Like charity, successful cross-
cultural communication should begin at home.

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 5.12

Thinking About Gender-Related Communication Styles

Choose one of the following questions and write a one-page response in your
journal.
184 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

1. Identify the distinctive differences between the communication styles of

men and women, as described by Deborah Tannen, and explain how these
differences can lead to miscommunication and misunderstandins.
2. On the basis of your own experience, explain whether or not you believe
Tannen’s analysis of these different communication styles is accurate. Pro¬
vide specific examples to support your viewpoint.
3. Describe a situation in which you have a miscommunication with a person
of the opposite sex. Analyze this situation on the basis of what you read in
the Tannen article.
4. Identify stratesies that both men and women can use to avoid the miscom¬
munication that can result from their contrastins styles.

Using Language to Influence

Because of the intimate relationship between language and thinking, people
naturally use language to influence the thinking of others. We noted earlier
that within the boundaries of social groups, people use a given language
style or dialect to emphasize shared information and experience. Not only
does this sharing identify the members of the group socially; it also provides
a base for them to influence one another's thinking. The expression "Now
you're speaking my language" illustrates this point.
Some people actually make a profession of using language to influence
others' thinking. In fact, many individuals and groups are interested in in¬
fluencing—and sometimes in controlling—your thoughts, your feelings, and
your behavior. To avoid being unconsciously manipulated by these efforts,
you must have an understanding and awareness of how language functions.
Such an understanding will help you distinguish actual arguments, informa¬
tion, and reasons from techniques of persuasion that others use to get you to
accept their views without critical thinking. Two types of language often
used to promote the uncritical acceptance of views are euphemistic language
and emotive language. By developing insight into these language strategies,
you will strengthen your abilities to function as a critical thinker.

Euphemistic Language
The term euphemism derives from a Greek word meaning "to speak with good
words," and using a euphemism involves substituting a more pleasant, less
objectionable expression for a blunt or more direct one. For example, an en¬
tire collection of euphemisms exists to disguise the unpleasantness of death:
passed away, went to her reward, departed this life, and blew out the candle.
Why do people use euphemisms? Probably to help smooth out the "rough
edges" of life, to make the unbearable bearable and the offensive, inoffensive.
Sometimes people use them to make their occupations seem more dignified (a
garbage collector, for instance, might be called a "sanitation engineer").
 Using Language to Influence 185

Euphemisms can become dangerous, though, when they are used to

evade or create misperceptions of serious issues. An alcoholic may describe
himself as a "social drinker," thus denying the problem and the need for help.
A politician may indicate that one of his statements was "somewhat at vari¬
ance with the truth"—meaning that he lied. Even more serious examples
would include describing rotting slums as "substandard housing," making
deplorable conditions appear reasonable and the need for action less impor¬
tant. One of the most devastating examples of the destructive power of eu¬
phemisms was Nazi Germany's characterizing the slaughter of millions of
men, women, and children as "the final solution" and "the purification of the
race." The 1990s' "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia is a similar example.
In the following passage from his classic essay "Politics and the English
Language," George Orwell describes how governments often employ eu¬
phemisms to disguise and justify wrongful policies.
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the in¬
defensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Rus¬
sian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan,
can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for
most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims
of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of
euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless
villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the
countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incen¬
diary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed
of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they
can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers.
People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the
neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimi¬
nation of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants
to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.13

Thinking Critically About Euphemisms

Read the following passage by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, dealing
with euphemisms for "getting fired." Then answer these questions in your jour¬
nal.
1. Why, do you think, are these bureaucratic euphemisms so prevalent?
2. Select an important social problem, such as drug use, crime, poverty, juve¬
nile delinquency, support for wars in other countries, racism, unethical or il¬
legal behavior in government, and so on. List several euphemisms used to
describe the problem; then explain how the euphemisms can lead to dan¬
gerous misperceptions and serious consequences.
 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

from"Separation Anxiety"
by Bob Herbert

The euphemism of choice for the corporate chopping block is downsiz¬

ing, but variations abound. John Thomas, a 59-year-old AT&T em¬
ployee, was told on Tuesday that his job was "not going forward/' One
thinks of a car with transmission trouble, or the New York Jets offense,
not the demise of a lengthy career.
Other workers are discontinued, involuntarily severed, surplussed.
There are men and women at AT&T who actually talk about living in a
"surplus universe."
There are special leaves, separations, rebalances, bumpings and, one
of my favorites, cascade bumpings. A cascade bumping actually sounds
like a joyful experience.
In the old days some snarling ogre would call you into the office and
say, "Jack, you're fired." It would be better if they still did it that way
because that might make the downsized, discontinued, surplussed or
severed employee mad as. hell. And if enough employees got mad
they might get together and decide to do something about the ever-
increasing waves of corporate greed and irresponsibility that have cap¬
sized their lives and will soon overwhelm many more.
Instead, with the niceties scrupulously observed, and with employ¬
ment alternatives in extremely short supply, the fired workers remain
fearful, frustrated, confused, intimidated and far too docile.... The
staggering job losses, even at companies that are thriving, are rational¬
ized as necessary sacrifices to the great gods of international competi¬
tion. Little is said about the corrosive effect of rampant corporate greed,
and even less about peculiar notions like corporate responsibility and
accountability not just to stockholders, but to employees and their
families, to the local community, to the social and economic well-being
of the country as a whole. °

New York Times, January 19,1996

Emotive Language

What is your immediate reaction to the following words?

sexV peaceful disgusting God filthy

mouthwatering bloodthirsty whore Nazi

Most of these words probably stimulate strong feelings in you. In fact, this
ability to evoke feelings accounts for the extraordinary power of language.
Making sense of the way that language can influence your thinking and be¬
havior means understanding the emotional dimension of language. Special
words (like those just listed) are used to stand for the emotive areas of your ex-
 Using Language to Influence 187

perience. These emotive words symbolize the whole range of human feelings,
from powerful emotions ("I adore you!") to the subtlest of feeling, as revealed
in this passage spoken by Chief Seattle in 1855, responding to a U.S. govern¬
ment proposal to buy his tribe's land and place the tribe on a reservation:

Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hill¬
side, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad
or happy event in days long vanished.... The very dust upon which you
now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than to yours, be¬
cause it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are con¬
scious of the sympathetic touch.... And when the last red man shall have
perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among
the white men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my
tribe.... At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and
you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that
once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be
alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are
not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.

Emotive language often plays a double role: it not only symbolizes and
expresses our feelings but also arouses or evokes feelings in others. When you
tell someone, "I love you," you usually are not simply expressing your feel¬
ings toward the person; you also hope to inspire similar feelings in that per¬
son toward you. Even when communicating factual information, we make
use of the emotive influence of language to interest other people in what we
are saying. For example, compare the more objective, factual account by The
New York Times (page 242) of Malcolm X's assassination with the more emo¬
tive/action account by Life magazine (page 242). Which account do-you find
more engaging? Why?
Although an emotive statement may be an accurate description of feel¬
ings, it is not the same as a factual statement, because it is true only for the
speaker—not for others. For instance, even though you may feel that a movie
is tasteless and repulsive, someone else may find it exciting and hilarious. By
describing your feelings about the movie, you are giving your personal eval¬
uation, which often differs from the personal evaluations of others (it is not
unusual to see conflicting reviews of the same movie). A factual statement, on
the other hand, is a statement with which all "rational" people will agree,
providing that suitable evidence for its truth is available (for example, the
fact that mass transit uses less energy than automobiles).
In some ways, symbolizing emotions is more difficult than representing
factual information about the world. Expressing feelings toward a person often
seems considerably more challenging than describing facts about him or her.
When emotive words are used in larger groups (such as sentences, para¬
graphs, compositions, poems, plays, novels, and so on), they become even
more powerful. The pamphlets of Thomas Paine helped inspire American pa-
188 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

triots in the Revolutionary War, and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

has endured as an expression of Americans' most cherished values. In horri¬
fying contrast were the vehement speeches of Adolf Hitler that influenced
German people before and during World War II.
One way to think about the meaning and power of emotive words is to
see them on a scale or continuum, from mild to strong. For example:

overweight/plump
fat
obese

The thinker Bertrand Russell used this feature of emotive words to sho w how
we perceive the same trait in various people:

■ I am firm.
■ You are stubborn.
■ He/she is pigheaded.

We usually tend to perceive ourselves favorably ("I am firm"). l am speaking

to you face to face, so I view you only somewhat less favorably ("You are
stubborn ). But since a third person is not present, you can use stronger emo¬
tive language ("He/she is pigheaded"). Try this technique with two other
emotive words:

1. I am ... You are ... He/she is ...

2. Iam... You are ... He/she is ...

Finally, emotive words can be used to confuse opinions with facts, a sit¬
uation that commonly occurs when we combine emotive uses of language
with informative uses. Although people may appear to be giving factual in¬
formation, they actually may be adding personal evaluations that are not
factual. These opinions are often emotional, biased, unfounded, or inflam¬
matory. Consider the following statement: "New York City is filthy and dan¬
gerous; only idiots would want to live there." Although the speaker appears
at first to be giving factual information, he or she is really using emotive lan¬
guage to advance an opinion. Yet emotive uses of language are not always
negative. The statement "She's the most generous, wise, honest, and warm
friend anyone could have" also illustrates the potential confusion of the emo¬
tive and the informative uses of language, except that in this case the feelings
are positive. °
Emotive words usually signal that a personal opinion or evaluation,
rather than a fact, is being stated. Speakers occasionally do identify their
opinions as opinions, with phrases like "In my opinion..." or "I feel
that...Often, however, speakers do not identify their opinions as such
because they want you to treat their judgments as facts. In these cases, the
 Using Language to Influence 189

combination of the informative use of language with the emotive use can be
misleading and even dangerous.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.14

Evaluating Emotive Language

Identify examples of emotive lansuase in the following passases and explain
how the writer is using it to influence people’s thoughts and feelings.

I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the heel of
tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation
forever. —Governor George C. Wallace, 1963

We dare not forget today that we are heirs of that first revolution. Let the
word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the
torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—bom in this
century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud
of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow un¬
doing of those human rights to which this nation has always been com¬
mitted, and to which we are committed today at home and around the
world. —President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961

Every criminal, every gambler, every thug, every libertine, every girl ru-
iner, every home wrecker, every wife beater, every dope peddler, every
moonshiner, every crooked politician, every pagan Papist priest, every
shyster lawyer, every white slaver, every brothel madam, every Rome-
controlled newspaper, every black spider—is fighting the Klan. Think it
over. Which side are you on? —From a Ku Klux Klan circular

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of

animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated arti¬
fice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his
knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image
in distortion. We patronize them for the incompleteness, for their tragic
fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err,
and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a
world older and more complete than ours they move finished and com¬
plete, gifted with extensions of the senses you have lost or never at¬
tained, living by voices you shall never hear. They are not brethren,
they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves
in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail
of the earth. —Henry Beston, The Outermost House
190 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 5.15

Thinking Critically About Racist Speech

One arena where the power and influence of lansuase has become an issue of
controversy is that of whether to prohibit racist, sexist, and otherwise offensive
speech on college campuses. In the following article, "On Racist Speech,"
Stanford University law professor Charles R. Lawrence III contends that racial
insults do not deserve the First Amendment's protection of free speech be¬
cause the intention of the speaker "is not to discover truth or initiate dialogue
but to injure the victim.” Therefore, he believes it is reasonable for colleges to
enact rules that punish people who use this sort of speech. In contrast, the next
article, "Free Speech on the Campus," by Nat Hentoff, contends that'these at¬
tempts to restrict free expression pose a grave threat to our freedom of
speech. As a writer and as a champion of First Amendment rights, Hentoff be¬
lieves that such prohibitions not only violate the Constitution but are counter¬
productive: "After all, if students are to be ‘protected’ from bad ideas, how are
they going to learn to identify and cope with them? Sending such ideas un¬
derground simply makes them stronger and more dangerous." After carefully
reading the two articles, write answers to these questions in your journal.

1. Summarize the main reasons and arguments that each author uses to support
his position.
2. Describe an experience in which you witnessed an example of racist, sexist,
or other offensive speech on your campus. What was your reaction to the in¬
cident? What are some destructive consequences of behavior like this?
3. Adopt the perspective of Charles R. Lawrence and analyze the incident you
witnessed, explaining what the college ought to do in response to this sort
of behavior.
4. Now adopt the perspective of Nat Hentoff and analyze the incident, ex¬
plaining why the college should do nothing in response to this type of be¬
havior.
5. Identify approaches, other than enacting campus rules, that can discourage and pre¬
vent racist, sexist, and offensive speech.

from On Racist Speech

by Charles R. Lawrence III

I have spent the better part of my life as a dissenter. As a high-school

student, I was threatened with suspension for my refusal to participate
in a civil-defense drill, and I have been a conspicuous consumer of my
First Amendment liberties ever since. There are very strong reasons for
protecting even racist speech. Perhaps the most important of these is
that such protection reinforces our society's commitment to tolerance as
 Using Language to Influence 191

a value, and that by protecting bad speech from government regulation,

we will be forced to combat it as a community.
But I also have a deeply felt apprehension about the resurgence of
racial violence and the corresponding rise in the incidence of verbal and
symbolic assault and harassment to which blacks and other tradition¬
ally subjugated and excluded groups are subjected. I am troubled by the
way the debate has been framed in response to the recent surge of racist
incidents on college and university campuses and in response to some
universities' attempts to regulate harassing speech. The problem has
been framed as one in which the liberty of free speech is in conflict with
the elimination of racism. I believe this has placed the bigot on the
moral high ground and farmed the rising flames of racism.
Above all, I am troubled that we have not listened to the real victims,
that we have shown so little understanding of their injury, and that we
have abandoned those whose race, gender, or sexual preference contin¬
ues to make them second-class citizens. It seems to me a very sad irony
that the first instinct of civil libertarians has been to challenge even the
smallest, most narrowly framed efforts by universities to provide black
and other minority students with the protection the Constitution guar¬
antees them.
The landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education is not a case that we
normally think of as a case about speech. But Brown can be broadly read
as articulating the principle of equal citizenship. Brown held that segre¬
gated schools were inherently unequal because of the message that seg¬
regation conveyed—that black children were an untouchable caste,
unfit to go to school with white children. If we understand the necessity
of eliminating the system of signs and symbols that signal the inferior¬
ity of blacks, then we should hesitate before proclaiming that all racist
speech that stops short of physical violence must be defended.
University officials who have formulated policies to respond to inci¬
dents of racial harassment have been characterized in the press as
"thought police," but such policies generally do nothing more than im¬
pose sanctions against intentional face-to-face insults. When racist
speech takes the form of face-to-face insults, catcalls, or other assaultive
speech aimed at an individual or small group of persons, it falls directly
within the "fighting words" exception to First Amendment protection.
The Supreme Court has held that words which "by their very utterance
inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are not
protected by the First Amendment.
If the purpose of the First Amendment is to foster the greatest
amount of speech, racial insults disserve that purpose. Assaultive racist
speech functions as a preemptive strike. The invective is experienced as
a blow, not as a proffered idea, and once the blow is struck, it is unlikely
that a dialogue will follow. Racial insults are particularly undeserving
of First Amendment protection because the perpetrator's intention is
Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

not to discover truth or initiate dialogue but to injure the victim. In most
situations, members of minority groups realize that they are likely to
lose if they respond to epithets by fighting and are forced to remain
silent and submissive.
Courts have held that offensive speech may not be regulated in pub¬
lic forums such as streets where the listener may avoid the speech by
moving on, but the regulation of otherwise protected speech has been
permitted when the speech invades the privacy of the unwilling lis¬
tener's home or when the unwilling listener cannot avoid the speech.
Racist posters, fliers, and graffiti in dormitories, bathrooms, and other
common living spaces would seem to clearly fall within the reasoning
of these cases. Minority students should not be required to remain in
their rooms in order to avoid racial assault. Minimally, they should find
a safe haven in their dorms and in all other common rooms that are a
part of their daily routine.
I would also argue that the university's responsibility for insuring that
these students receive an equal educational opportunity provides a com¬
pelling justification for regulations that insure them safe passage in all
common areas. A minority student should not have to risk becoming the
target of racially assaulting speech every time he or she chooses to walk
across campus. Regulating vilifying speech that cannot be anticipated or
avoided would not preclude announced speeches and rallies—situations
that would give minority-group members and their allies the chance to
organize counter-demonstrations or avoid the speech altogether
The most commonly advanced argument against the regulation of
racist speech proceeds something like this: we recognize that minority
groups suffer pain and injury as the result of racist speech, but we must
allow this hate mongering for the benefit of society as a whole. Freedom
of speech is the lifeblood of our democratic system. It is especially im¬
portant for minorities because often it is their only vehicle for rallying
support for the redress of their grievances. It will be impossible to for¬
mulate a prohibition so precise that it will prevent the racist speech we
want to suppress without catching in the same net all kinds of speech
that it would be unconscionable for a democratic society to suppress.
Whenever we make such arguments, we are striking a balance on the
one hand between our concern for the continued free flow of ideas and
the democratic process dependent on that flow, and, on the other, our de¬
sire to further the cause of equality. There can be no meaningful discus¬
sion of how we should reconcile our commitment to equality and our
commitment to free speech until it is acknowledged that there is real
harm inflicted by racist speech and that this harm is far from trivial.
To engage in a debate about the First Amendment and racist speech
without a full understanding of the nature and extent of that harm is to
risk making the First Amendment an instrument of domination rather
than a vehicle of liberation. We have not known the experience of
 Using Language to Influence 193

victimization by racist, misogynist, and homophobic speech, nor do we

equally share the burden of the societal harm it inflicts. We are often
quick to say that we have heard the cry of the victims when we have not.
The Brown case is again instructive because it speaks directly to the
psychic injury inflicted by racist speech by noting that the symbolic
message of segregation affected "the hearts and minds" of Negro chil¬
dren "in a way unlikely ever to be undone." Racial epithets and harass¬
ment often cause deep emotional scarring and feelings of anxiety and
fear that pervade every aspect of a victim's life.
Brown also recognized that black children did not have an equal op¬
portunity to learn and participate in the school community if they bore
the additional burden of being subjected to the humiliation and psychic
assault contained in the message of segregation. University students
bear an analogous burden when they are forced to live and work in an
environment where at any moment they may be subjected to denigrat¬
ing verbal harassment and assault. The same injury was addressed by
the Supreme Court when it held that sexual harassment that creates a
hostile or abusive work environment violates the ban on sex discrimi¬
nation in employment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Carefully drafted university regulations would bar the use of words
as assault weapons and leave unregulated even the most heinous of
ideas when those ideas are presented at times and places and in man¬
ners that provide an opportunity for reasoned rebuttal or escape from
immediate injury. The history of the development of the right to free
speech has been one of carefully evaluating the importance of free
expression and its effects on other important societal interests. We
have drawn the line between protected and unprotected speech before
without dire results. (Courts have, for example, exempted from the
protection of the First Amendment obscene speech and speech that
disseminates official secrets, that defames or libels another person, or
that is used to form a conspiracy or monopoly.)
Blacks and other people of color are skeptical about the argument
that even the most injurious speech must remain unregulated because,
in an unregulated marketplace of ideas, the best ones will rise to the top
and gain acceptance. Our experience tells us quite the opposite. We
have seen too many good liberal politicians shy away from the issues
that might brand them as being too closely allied with us.
Whenever we decide that racist speech must be tolerated because of
the importance of maintaining societal tolerance for all unpopular
speech, we are asking blacks and other subordinated groups to bear the
burden for the good of all. We must be careful that the ease with which
we strike the balance against the regulation of racist speech is in no way
influenced by the fact that the cost will be borne by others. We must be
certain that those who will pay that price are fairly represented in our
deliberations and that they are heard.
Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

At the core of the argument that we should resist all government reg¬
ulation of speech is the ideal that the best cure for bad speech is good,
that ideas that affirm equality and the worth of all individuals will ulti¬
mately prevail. This is an empty ideal unless those of us who would
fight racism are vigilant and unequivocal in that fight. We must look for
ways to offer assistance and support to students whose speech and po¬
litical participation are chilled in a climate of racial harassment.
Civil rights lawyers might consider suing on behalf of blacks whose
right to an equal education is denied by a university's failure to insure
a nondiscriminatory educational climate or conditions of employment.
We must embark upon the development of a First Amendment ju¬
risprudence grounded in the reality of our history and our contempo¬
rary experience. We must think hard about how best to launch legal
attacks against the most indefensible forms of hate speech. Good
lawyers can create exceptions and narrow interpretations that limit the
harm of hate speech without opening the floodgates of censorship.
Everyone concerned with these issues must find ways to engage ac¬
tively in actions that resist and counter the racist ideas that we would
have the First Amendment protect. If we fail in this, the victims of hate
speech must rightly assume that we are on the oppressors' side.

from Free Speech on the Campus

by Nat Hentoff

A flier distributed at the University of Michigan some months ago pro¬

claimed that blacks "don't belong in classrooms, they belong hanging
from trees."
At other campuses around the country, manifestations of racism are
becoming commonplace. At Yale, a swastika and the words WHITE
POWER! were painted on the building housing the University's Afro-
American Cultural Center. At Temple University, a White Students
Union has been formed with some 130 members.
Swastikas are not directed only at black students. The Nazi symbol
has been spray-painted on the Jewish Student Union at Memphis State
University. And on a number of campuses, women have been singled
out as targets of wounding and sometimes frightening speech. At the
law school of the State University of New York at Buffalo, several
women students have received anonymous letters characterized bv one
professor as venomously sexist.
These and many more such signs of the resurgence of bigotry and
know-nothingism throughout the society—as well as on campus—have
to do solely with speech, including symbolic speech. There have also
been physical assaults on black students and on black, white, and Asian
women students, but the way to deal with physical attacks is clear: call
 Using IJinguage to Influence 195

the police and file a criminal complaint. What is to be done, however,

about speech alone—however disgusting, inflammatory, and rawly di¬
visive that speech may be?
At more and more colleges, administrators—with the enthusiastic
support of black students, women students, and liberal students—have
been answering that question by preventing or punishing speech. In
public universities, this is a clear violation of the First Amendment. In
private colleges and universities, suppression of speech mocks the sec¬
ular religion of academic freedom and free inquiry.
The Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C.—a vital source of
legal support for student editors around the country—reports, for exam¬
ple, that at the University of Kansas, the student host and producer of a
radio news program was forbidden by school officials from interviewing
a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. So much for free inquiry on that campus.
In Madison, Wisconsin, the Capital Times ran a story in January about
Chancellor Sheila Kaplan of the University of Wisconsin branch at Park-
side, who ordered her campus to be scoured of ''some anonymously
placed white supremacist hate literature." Sounding like the legendary
Mayor Frank ("I am the law") Hague of Jersey City, who booted "bad
speech" out of town, Chancellor Kaplan said, "This institution is not a
lamppost standing on the street comer. It doesn't belong to everyone."
Who decides what speech can be heard or read by everyone? Why,
the Chancellor, of course. That's what George III used to say, too.
University of Wisconsin political science professor Carol Tebben
thinks otherwise. She believes university administrators "are getting
confused when they are acting as censors and trying to protect students
from bad ideas. I don't think students need to be protected from bad
ideas. I think they can determine for themselves what ideas are bad."
After all, if students are to be "protected" from bad ideas, how are
they going to learn to identify and cope with them? Sending such ideas
underground simply makes them stronger and more dangerous.
10 Professor Tebben's conviction that free speech means just that has be¬
come a decidedly minority view on many campuses. At the University
of Buffalo Law School, the faculty unanimously adopted a "Statement
Regarding Intellectual Freedom, Tolerance, and Political Harassment."
Its title implies support of intellectual freedom, but the statement
warned students that once they enter "this legal community," their
right to free speech must become tempered "by the responsibility to
promote equality and justice."
Accordingly, swift condemnation will befall anyone who engages in
"remarks directed at another's race, sex, religion, national origin, age,
or sex preference." Also forbidden are "other remarks based on preju¬
dice and group stereotype."
This ukase is so broad that enforcement has to be alarmingly subjec¬
tive. Yet the University of Buffalo Law School provides no due process
196 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

procedures for a student booked for making any of these prohibited re¬
marks. Conceivably, a student caught playing a Lenny Bruce, Richard
Pryor, or Sam Kinison album in his room could be tried for aggravated
insensitivity by association.
When I looked into this wholesale cleansing of bad speech at Buffalo, I
found it had encountered scant opposition. One protester was David
Gerald Jay, a graduate of the law school and a cooperating attorney for the
New York Civil Liberties Union. Said the appalled graduate: "Content-
based prohibitions constitute prior restraint and should not be tolerated."
\ou would think that the law professors and administration at this
public university might have known that. But hardly any professors
dissented, and among the students only members of the conservative
Federalist Society spoke up for free speech. The fifty-strong chapter of
the National Lawyers Guild was on the other side. After all, it was more
important to go on record as vigorously opposing racism and sexism
than to expose oneself to charges of insensitivity to these malignancies.
The pressures to have the "right" attitude—as proved by having the
right language in and out of class—can be stifling. A student who op¬
poses affirmative action, for instance, can be branded a racist.
At the University of California at Los Angeles, the student newspa¬
per ran an editorial cartoon satirizing affirmative action. (A student
stops a rooster on campus and asks how the rooster got into UCLA.
"Affirmative action," is the answer.) After outraged complaints from
various minority groups, the editor was suspended for violating a pub¬
lication policy against running "articles that perpetuate derogatory or
cultural stereotypes." The art director was also suspended.
When the opinion editor of the student newspaper at California State
University at Northridge wrote an article asserting that the sanctions
against the editor and art director at UCLA amounted to censorship, he
was suspended too.
At New York University Law School, a student was so disturbed by
the pall of orthodoxy at that prestigious institution that he wrote to the
school newspaper even though, as he said, he expected his letter to
make him a pariah among his fellow students.
Barry Endick described the atmosphere at NYU created by "a host of
watchdog committees and a generally hostile classroom reception re¬
garding any student comment right of center." This "can be arguably
viewed as symptomatic of a prevailing spirit of academic and social in¬
tolerance of... any idea which is not 'politically correct.'"
He went on to say something that might well be posted on campus
bulletin boards around the country, though it would probably be torn
down at many of them: "You ought to examine why students, so anx¬
ious to wield the Fourteenth Amendment, give short shrift to the First.
Yes, Virginia, there are racist assholes. And you know what, the Consti¬
tution protects them, too."
 Using Language to Influence 197

Not when they engage in violence or vandalism. But when they

speak or write, racist assholes fall right into this Oliver Wendell Holmes
definition—highly unpopular among bigots, liberals, radicals, femi¬
nists, sexists, and college administrators: "If there is any principle of the
Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any
other, it is the principle of free thought—not free only for those who
agree with you, but freedom for the thought you hate."
The language sounds like a pietistic Sunday sermon, but if it ever
falls wholly into disuse, neither this publication nor any other journal
of opinion—right of left—will survive.
198 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

WRITING PROJECT

This chapter on language explores the essential role of language in develop¬

ing sophisticated thinking abilities. The goal of clear, effective thinking and
communication—avoiding ambiguity and vagueness—is accomplished
through the joint efforts of thought and language. Learning to use the appro¬
priate language style, depending on the social context in which you are op¬
erating, requires both critical judgment and flexible expertise with various
language forms. Critically evaluating the pervasive attempts of advertisers
and others to bypass your critical faculties and influence your thinking in¬
volves insight into the way language and thought create and express mean¬
ing. We will be examining these relationships between language and thought
further in the ensuing chapters, especially in Chapter 12, Constructing Argu¬
ments—Writing to Bring Agreement.
The following Writing Project provides an opportunity for you to apply
what you have learned in this chapter to your own writing.

WRITING PROJECT Language and You

Write a paper in which you discuss some specific aspect of your ex¬
perience with language. You will analyze some way or ways in which
words have affected you. You may want to write about a poem or a
song lyric that you love, or how the language in a religious ceremony
or political statement influenced you, or about advertisements that
made you want or reject the product. You might tell of the impact
of statements or remarks from your parents, grandparents, teachers,
or friends. You might recount one event or several situations; you
can discuss positive or negative effects. When possible, connect
your experience with concepts explained in this chapter. After you
have drafted your paper, revise it to the best of your ability. Follow
directions given by your instructor as to topic limitations, length, for¬
mat, and so forth.

Because this paper may either focus on one experience or pull several situ¬
ations together, the principles you need to think about are those involved in
writing any paper that connects your personal experience with a complex issue.

1. Make clear that you know that your experience is illustrative, not conclu¬
sive, evidence.
2. Present your experience as vividly as you think effective. Use specific details.
3. State clearly your point or thesis about the effect(s) on you. Think about
where to do this.
 Using Language to Influence 199

4. Be explicit about the connections you see between your experience and the
concepts about language that they illustrate. Perhaps you will quote from
the chapter. If you do, cite as directed by your instructor.
Begin by considering the key elements in the Thinking*-*Writing Model
(illustrated in Chapter 1, page 8).
Purpose
You have several purposes for this piece of writing. One is to connect abstract
ideas about language with real-life experiences so that you and your readers
can understand the concepts better. Another is to deal with the challenge of
connecting ideas, a thinking activity that is central to your college studies. As
with any writing project, a major purpose is to make your points clear and
convincing to your audience.
Audience
Whenever you draw on your own experiences, you are an important mem¬
ber of your own audience because you can clarify your thinking about some¬
thing that has happened to you. Other people involved in your experiences
would probably also be a good audience. As always, consider who would
benefit from reading your paper.
Your classmates are an important audience since they share this reading
and writing experience and should enjoy learning from your paper. They are
a particularly good audience for your drafts. If your instructor encourages or
requires peer review sessions, be sure to take advantage of this opportunity
to work with knowledgeable readers.
Your instructor is the audience who will judge how well you have
planned, drafted, and revised. As a writing teacher, your instructor cares
about a clear focus, logical organization, sound evidence, and correctness in
finished versions.
Subject
Because, as this chapter has pointed out, language is essential to our defini¬
tion as human beings, the subject of your paper is tremendously important.
Also, because language is a huge subject, one about which fairly simple and
very complex ideas abound, writing about some real-life experience can clar¬
ify—and test—the ideas you decide to write about.
Writer
Because this project draws on your own experience, you are in a position of
authority. However, the project asks you to focus on an aspect of your expe¬
rience that you might not have thought about before, and it requires an ana¬
lytical approach rather than a narrative one, even though you may decide to
tell of an event. Therefore, you will need a sort of double consciousness as a
writer: you want to recall your experience as directly as you can, but then you
will have to distance yourself as you analyze what language did or does in
the experience that you are writing about.
200 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

The Writing Process

The following sections will guide you through the stages of generating, plan¬
ning, drafting, and revising as you work on this writing assignment.

Generating Ideas
1. Think of times when what you heard, read, or even said had some impact
on you. Did someone use harsh language that upset you, or comforting
language? Did you say something funny, helpful, embarrassing, or astute?
Have you read something over and over? Why?
2. Do you find any common denominator among several experiences? Or
does one experience stand out and ask to be told as a single story?
3. Have your significant language experiences involved spoken words more
than written ones?
4. Have any of your experiences involved more than one language or more
than one dialect or level of usage?
5. Freewrite for five minutes about the ideas that have come to you. Do any
of them seem to be developing into a focus for your essay?
6. Look at the questions for generating ideas on pages 13-16 in Chapter 1.
Can any of them help you with this project?

Defining a Focus
Draft a thesis statement that makes a point about your experience. If you
haven't selected one experience or a cluster of several, draft several possible
thesis statements. Share your tentative statement with classmates; do they
consider your idea worthwhile? Then list things you might say to develop
your thesis.

Organizing Ideas
The organization of this paper will depend on whether you are telling about
one or two events or noting a number of experiences. However you approach
it, you will need to consider what arrangement will help your audience un¬
derstand the effects that you are describing. If you are using specific concepts
from the chapter, you will have to think about how and where to present
them so that their relevance is clear. Maybe a mind map or a web would help.

Drafting
Start with the part that will be easiest to write. Look at your freewriting and
your possible thesis statement and your list or map of ideas. Now, work those
early-stage writings into a coherent draft. Remember that shaping ideas is
your biggest concern at this stage. Trust yourself to speak about your own ex¬
periences and to explain what they mean to you.
After you have drafted enough material, give attention to paragraphs.
 The Writing Process 201

Where does your material cluster into divisions? Which paragraphs need
topic sentences? Where in the paragraphs should topic sentences be placed?
Draft an opening paragraph and a conclusion. What connections exist be¬
tween them? How can they create an effective beginning and a good ending
for your essay?

Revising
Ideally, at this point, you should put your draft aside for a day or two. If
deadlines won't permit you to do that, then at least take a break before you
try to revise. When you are ready to "re-see" your writing, begin by reading
it through slowly, preferably aloud. If possible, have someone whose opinion
you respect read it; ask for feedback. Then work through the hierarchy of re¬
vision concerns that follows. Remember that you have at least one and pos¬
sibly two decisions to make for each question: (1) Is improvement needed?
and (2) If improvement is needed, how, exactly, can I make my draft better?

1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.

■ Does it fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ Is the organization logical?
■ Do you provide enough evidence?
■ Is your point of view consistent?
■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs?
■ Have you documented information from your sources accurately?
■ Have you used quotation marks around direct quotes or set the quotes
off by indenting?
2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.
■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
■ Is the introduction appropriate for the rest of the draft?
■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a "visible" structure?
■ If you are working with an "invisible" structure, is your focus clearly
implied?
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
■ Does each body paragraph develop a different idea?
■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Is your conclusion effective?
3. Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.
■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
202 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

■ Are sentences with blended quotations (that is, quotations that are inte¬
grated into the syntax of the sentence instead of introduced with "He
said ..." or "She said ...") complete and easy to read?
■ Are quotations shortened with ellipsis marks accurate and readable?
■ Are there several choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Are any sentences vague?
■ Do any sentences need to be corrected for standard English grammar
and usage?

4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.

■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are any words misspelled?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
■ Does your paper make a good impression by being neat?
■ Is there anything else you could do to improve your draft?

Editing and Proofreading

After you prepare a final draft, check again for correct grammar and punctu¬
ation. Proofread carefully for omitted words or punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread again for
the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.

Student Essay
The following essay shows how one student responded to this assignment.
Concluding the chapter is a poem by Roberto Obregon.

STUDENT WRITING
The Power of Language
by Jessie Lange

Language is indeed one of the most powerful things we possess. It is

how we communicate our ideas, how we put out abstract feelings for
others into words, and it is what we use to describe and evaluate our
human experience. Being a ''good speaker" in public is something we
value highly as we do effective communication in our personal lives.
One of the most incredible things about language is the power that
just a phrase or even a single word can have. In fact, just a few words
often have more of an impact than long speeches and run-on
 Student Writing 203

sentences. How does it happen that a small combination of letters

can have such a tremendous effect on us?
In the play Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puis, one of the
characters, Molina, comments on the power of lansuase. Molina, a
gentle soul and an expert storyteller, is desperately in love with the
man with whom he is sharing a prison cell. "How does it happen that
sometimes someone says something and wins someone else over
forever?" he wonders. If only he knew, he could win the love of his
cell-mate, Valentin. What Molina is acknowledging is that it doesn’t
take an infinite number of words to say something powerful. It can be
a phrase or even a single word that has the most profound impact on
others. In this case, it is the "one thing" uttered that causes another to
fall in love with you. In the everyday, there are particular words and
phrases that stay with us, that we roll over in our minds, repeating
them to ourselves again and again. There are certain words that have
such an impact that they stay with us eternally longer than the time it
took to utter them. I recently had a personal experience with the ef¬
fects of this.
After my first four months of college, I returned home for the win¬
ter break. After four months of reading inspirational writers, attending
the lectures of powerful speakers, learning about language itself in my
linguistics course, speaking French, and having discussions with intel¬
ligent professors who are at the top of their field, I returned home to
be more affected by one word uttered by my twelve-year-old brother
than I had been by any of the speaking or listening I’d engaged in first
semester. My brother and I have always been extremely close. We do
not have the "sibling rivalry" I so often hear about from others. And so,
being apart had been a struggle. The fact that we had been apart so
long and the impending separation just a few weeks away were prob¬
ably much of the reason his words had such an effect on me. We were
saying goodnight one night and my brother who, in many ways, is a
miniature me, was holding my hand. I’d just finished assuring him that
he was the "bomb” and he was smiling at me. Somewhere out of his
slim twelve-year-old frame a thought emerged in the form of speech:
"I wish I could take you with me," he said. "Where?" I asked, thor¬
oughly confused. His smile broadened. "Everywhere," he said matter-
of-factly. Such a simple word but, to me, so profoundly meaningful,
causing a complete overflow of emotion. I had visions of never letting
go of his hand. Of bringing him to college with me, of going to school
with him, of bringing him all through my life and never missing a day
or a second of his getting older. Just one word: Everywhere. If I’ve
learned anything about language it’s that the cliche "quality, not quan¬
tity" definitely applies. It took one utterance from my brother to al¬
most bring me to tears. With one word, I could imagine myself
holding his fingers in mine wherever I went, wherever we went.
204 Chapter 5 Language and Thought—Writing Precisely

Equal to a Pebble
by Roberto Obregon
Translated by Zoe Anglesey

Words, when exposed to air

grow like calves.
Over the years they mature and increase in value
or they may be stillborn.
5 Either one.

The word reveals to us

what constitutes the spirit.
It's a very delicate thing.

In the mouth of a liar

10 it exposes to the bone
a thankless soul.

The word, equal to nuclear power

in good hands can save lives
if not, it amounts to doomsday
is in a darkened conscience.

By impact of a word alone

a Hollywood star can fall from grace.
Tyrants fear it
and the guilty prefer not to use it.

20 Like coins we drop words

into the mind of a child
so that with time
the thinking will be a storehouse of riches.

The word is the most precious of gems

25 we give to our loved ones
so they believe and confide in us.
If love falls apart it's proof we lie.

A moist word, vital like earth

whispers in the hush of silence
30 and true it can soothe, be lusty
or instrumental to a plan that urges on a nation.

Sure. People live not by bread alone.

The word also offers sustenance
being what it is:
35 product of my hands, and yours.
And no such things!
PART TWO

Thinking and Writing

to Show Relationships

chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time—

Writing to Show Observations and
Sequences
chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—
Writing About Perspectives
chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to
Analyze Causes
chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and
Define

11 of us actively shape, as well as discover, the world of our experience

/\in which we live. Our world does not exist as a finished product
waiting for us to perceive it, think about it, and describe it with words and
pictures. Instead, we are active participants in composing our world—
selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensations into a coherent whole.
Many times, our shaping of this world will reflect basic thinking patterns
that we rely on constantly whenever we think, act, speak, or write.
Part Two explores four basic ways of relating and organizing:
relationships in space and time, relationships of comparison, relationships
of cause, and relationships of classification and definition. The Writing
Projects at the end of each chapter ask you to integrate ideas from one, two,
or three other sources into your essays as you explore these relationships.
 CHAPTER 6

Exploring Relationships in Space and

Time—Writing to Show Observations
and Sequences

Critical Thinking Focus: Understanding perceptions

Writing Focus: Detail and order in descriptions and chronologies
Reading Theme: Depicting objects and experiences
Writing Project: Narrative that illuminates an issue in society

Experiencing, Perceiving, and Thinking Critically

The way we make sense of the world is through thinking, but our first expe¬
riences of the world come to uS by means of our senses: sight, hearing, smell,
touch, and taste. These senses are our bridges to the world, making us aware
of what occurs outside us, and the process of becoming aware of the world
through our senses is known as perceiving.
This chapter and Chapter 7 will explore the way the perceiving process
operates and how it relates to the ability to think, read, and write effectively.
In particular, these chapters examine the way each of us shapes personal ex¬
perience by actively selecting from, organizing, and interpreting the infor¬
mation provided by the senses. In a way, we each view the world through a
pair of individual "contact lenses" that reflect our past experiences and our
unique personalities. As critical thinkers, we want to become aware of the na¬
ture of our own "lenses," so as to offset any bias or distortion they may be
causing. We also want to become aware of the "lenses" of others, so that we
can better understand why they view things the way they do.

206
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 207

Some of the most basic patterns of thinking and of presenting ideas seem
to draw directly on perceptions, and this chapter will focus on two such pat¬
terns of description: chronological and process. Those two patterns are used
in some way in almost every kind of writing and often are starting points for
other patterns, as you will see in Chapters 7,8, and 9. You will also consider the
strengths and weaknesses of narratives as examples and evidence. The Writ¬
ing Project offers you an opportunity to integrate material from a published
article with a narrative of your own that illuminates an important societal issue.

Thinking Critically About Perceptions

At almost every waking moment of life, our senses are being bombarded by
a tremendous number of stimuli: images to see, noises to hear, odors to smell,
textures to feel, and flavors to taste. Experiencing all such sensations at once
could create what the nineteenth-century American philosopher William
James called "a bloomin' buzzin' confusion." Yet to us, the world usually
seems much more orderly and understandable. Why is this so?
In the first place, our sense equipment can receive sensations only within
certain limited ranges. For example, there are many sounds and smells that
animals can detect but we cannot; animals' sense organs have broader ranges
in these areas than ours do. A second reason we can handle sensory bom¬
bardment is that from the stimulation available, we select only a small
amount on which to focus our attention.
To demonstrate this, try the following exercise. Concentrate on what you
can see, ignoring your other senses for the moment. Focus on sensations that
you were not previously aware of; then answer the first of the following five
questions. Concentrate on each of your other senses in turn, following the
same procedure.

1. What can you see? (for example, the shape of the letters on the page, the
design of the clothing on your arm)
2. What can you hear? (for example, the hum of the air circulator, the rustling
of a page)
3. What can you feel? (for example, the pressure of the clothes against your
skin, the texture of the page on your fingers)
4. What can you smell? (for example, the perfume or cologne someone is
wearing, the odor of stale cigarette smoke)
5. What can you taste? (for example, the aftereffects of your last meal)

Compare your responses with those of other students in the class. Did
your classmates perceive sensations different from the ones you perceived? If
so, how do you explain these differences?
By practicing this simple exercise, it should be clear that for every sensa¬
tion you focus on, there are countless other sensations you are simply
 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

ignoring. If you were aware of everything that was happening at every mo¬
ment, you would be completely overwhelmed. By selecting particular sensa¬
tions, you are able to make sense of your world in a relatively orderly way.
That is, you are perceiving.

Perceiving actively selecting, organizing, and interpreting what

is experienced by the senses.

It is tempting to think that our senses simply record what is happening out
in the world, as if we were human camcorders. We are not, however, passive
receivers of information, "containers" into which sense experience is poured.
Instead, we are active participants who are always hying to understand the sen¬
sations we are encountering. As we perceive the world, our experiences are the
result of combining the sensations we are having with the way we understand
these sensations. For instance, examine the collection of markings in Figure
6.1. What do you see? If all you see is a collection of black spots, try turning the
illustration sideways; you will probably perceive a familiar animal.

Figure 6.1

From this example you can grasp how, when you perceive the world, you
are doing more than simply recording what your senses experience: you are
actively making sense of these sensations. This collection of black spots sud¬
denly became the figure of an animal because you were able to actively orga¬
nize the spots into a pattern you recognized. Or think about times when you
were able to look up at the white, billowy clouds in the sky and see different
figures and designs. The figures you were perceiving were not actually in the
clouds but were the result of your giving a meaningful form to shapes you
were experiencing.
The same is true for virtually everything we experience. Our perceptions
of the world result from combining the information provided by our senses
with the way we actively make sense of this information. And since making
sense of information is what we are doing when we are thinking, perceiving
the world involves using our minds in an active way. Of course, we are usu¬
ally not aware that we are using our minds to interpret the sensations we are
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 209

Your world, and your perception of it, is created by your ongoins experi¬
ences and your reflections on these events.

experiencing. We simply see the animal or the figures in the clouds as if they
were really there.

Actively Selecting, Organizing, and Interpreting Sensations

When we actively perceive the sensations we are experiencing, we are usu¬
ally engaged in three distinct activities:

■ Selecting certain sensations to pay attention to

■ Organizing these sensations into a design or pattern
■ Interpreting what this design or pattern means

In the case of Figure 6.1, you were able to perceive an animal because you se¬
lected certain of the markings to concentrate on, organized these markings
into a pattern, and interpreted this pattern as representing a dog.
 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

Of course, when we perceive, the three operations of selecting, organiz¬

ing, and interpreting are usually performed quickly, automatically, and often
simultaneously. Also, because they are so rapid and automatic, we are nor¬
mally unaware that we are performing these operations.
Take a few moments to explore more examples that illustrate how you ac¬
tively select, organize, and interpret your perceptions of the world. Carefully
examine Figure 6.2. Do you see both the young woman and the old woman?
If you do, try switching back and forth between the two images. As you
switch back and forth, notice how for each image, you are doing the follow¬
ing things:

■ Selecting certain lines, shapes, and shadings on which to focus your at¬
tention
■ Organizing these lines, shapes, and shadings into different patterns
■ Interpreting these patterns as representing things you can recognize—a
hat, a nose, a chin

Fisure 6.2

Another way for you to become aware of your active participation in per¬
ceiving your world is to consider how you see objects. Examine Figure 6.3.
Do you perceive different-sized people, or same-sized people at different dis¬
tances?

Fisure 6.3
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 211

When we see someone who is far away, we usually do not perceive a tiny
person. Instead, we receive a normal-sized person who is far away. Our ex¬
perience in the world has enabled us to discover that the farther things are,
the smaller they look. The moon in the night sky appears about the size of a
quarter, yet we perceive it as considerably larger. As we look down a long
stretch of railroad tracks or gaze up at a tall building, the boundary lines
seem to come together. Even though these images are what our eyes "see,"
we do not usually perceive the tracks meeting or the building coming to a
point. Instead, our minds actively organize and interpret a world composed
of constant shapes and sizes, even though the images seen usually vary, de¬
pending on how far away they are and the angle from which they are
perceived.
So far, we have been exploring how the mind actively participates in the
ways we perceive the world. By combining the sensations we are receiving
with the way our minds select, organize, and interpret these sensations, we
perceive a world that is stable and familiar. Thus, each of us develops a per¬
spective on the world, a perspective that usually makes sense to us.
The process of perceiving takes place at a variety of different levels. At
the most basic level, the concept of "perceiving" refers to the selection, orga¬
nization, and interpretation of sensations: for example, being able to perceive
various objects such as a basketball. However, we also perceive larger pat¬
terns of meaning at more complex levels, as in watching the action of a group
of people engaged in a basketball game. Although these are very different
contexts, both engage us in the process of actively selecting, organizing, and
interpreting what is experienced by our senses—in other words, perceiving.

Differences in People's Perceptions

We have noted that our active participation in perceiving the world is some¬
thing we are not usually aware of. We normally assume that what we are per¬
ceiving is what is actually taking place. Only when we find that our
perception of the same event differs from the perceptions of others are we
forced to examine the manner in which we are selecting, organizing, and in¬
terpreting the event.

THINKING++WRITING ACTIVITY 6.1

Interpretins Your Perceptions
Carefully examine the picture of the boy presented in Fisure 6.4. What do you
think is happenins in this picture? Write the answers to questions 1-3 in your
journal; then, after you hear the perceptions of other students, add the answers
to question 4.
212 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

Figure 6.4

1. Describe as specifically as possible what you perceive is taking place in the

picture.
2. Describe what you think will take place next.
3. Identify which details of the picture led you to your perceptions.
4. Compare your perceptions with those of other students in the class. List sev¬
eral perceptions that differ from yours.

In most cases, people in a group will have a variety of perceptions about

what is taking place in Figure 6.4. Some will see the boy as frustrated because
the work is too difficult. Others will see him concentrating on what has to be
done. Still others may see him as annoyed because he is being forced to do
something he doesn't want to do. In each case, the perception depends on
how the person is actively using his or her mind to organize and interpret
what is taking place.

Writing Thoughtfully About Sensory Perceptions

While the verb describe can be used to mean the giving of any detailed ac¬
count, it more precisely indicates the reporting of sensory impressions: what
one sees, hears, feels, smells, or tastes—one's perceptions. Look back at the
questions on page 207 to be reminded of how your five senses responded;
 Writing Thoughtfully About Sensory Perceptions 213

also, reflect on what you have been reading about selecting, organizing, and
interpreting sensations. This material should help you understand the two
types of descriptions that you will be asked to write in the following Think-
ing< ► Writing Activity, descriptions that you might write in other college
courses or in work situations.
Descriptions can be broadly divided into two categories: objective, with as
little judgment as possible, or subjective, with whatever personal judgment is
appropriate to a writer's purpose. Objective descriptions are often expected
in scientific, medical, engineering, and law enforcement writing. An art his¬
tory course might require an objective description of a painting or a piece of
sculpture. The purpose of an objective description is to help the audience
sense the item as it "is." Later, judgments and implications can be drawn
from objective descriptions, but the cleanest possible rendering is needed as
a starting point. Of course, the selection and presentation of any ideas or in¬
formation involves conscious and unconscious judgments; but when objec¬
tivity is the purpose, you should try to perceive with as little bias as you can
and to describe in language that is as neutral as possible.
In other writing situations, descriptions are intended to be more subjec¬
tive. Then the explicit purpose is to shape the audience's opinion of the object
under scrutiny. Subjective descriptions occur in literary texts of all kinds: sto¬
ries, poems, personal essays, and biographies; in argumentative pieces; and in
personal writing, such as letters to friends and journal entries. Think of how a
novelist describes characters or settings; think of how an attorney might re¬
word the police report's objective description of a victim in order to influence
a jury; think of how you would describe your new special person to a close
friend! When writing a subjective description, you will be selecting details
purposefully and using language that creates the effect that you are aiming for.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 6.2

Contrasting Objective and Subjective Writing

Read "Woodworking Joints'' and the paragraphs from The Way to Rainy Moun¬
tain. Then write answers to these questions in your journal.
1. Which of these selections is more objective? Is it completely so? Identify
some objective sentences,- identify some that seem subjective.
2. Could you have pictured the joints without the drawings (Fig. 6.5)? If so,
what in the description helps you see? If not, rewrite one paragraph, using
more graphic language. What effect does your experience with carpentry
have on your understanding of this piece?
3. Which of these selections is more subjective? Identify some words and sen¬
tences that you believe the author is using to influence your thinking. What
impressions do you get from these words and sentences?
 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

4. In each selection, identify one or two sentences that you think contribute
well to the description. Which senses are involved? What details are effec¬
tive?

Woodworking Joints
At the heart of woodworking is a question: How do you join two pieces
of wood together? In fact, this is the reason why cabinetmaking was tra¬
ditionally known as the art of "joinery" (see Figure 6.5).
The simplest way to attach two pieces of wood is simply to nail or
screw the edge of one board to another. This is known as a butt joint,
from the word abut. Though this is a simple joint, it is not a very strong
joint because it depends entirely on the nail or screw to hold the two
pieces together.
The miter joint, used in most picture frames, is like a butt joint except
that the two edges which are to be joined are cut at an angle (usually 45
degrees) and together form a 90-degree comer.
Although it sounds like a cartoon character, the dado joint is in reality
a strong, effective joint found in many bookshelves. It is formed by cut¬
ting a channel across one of the pieces to be joined, into which the other
board fits snugly.
To understand the tongue and groove joint, imagine sticking your
tongue into a small opening—and then having it glued in place! Be¬
cause of its unusual strength, this joint is used extensively in the con¬
struction of furniture (particularly chairs) that will receive considerable
active use over its lifetime.
The dovetail joint, cut in the shape of a dove's tail, is formed by fitting
together two interlocking sets of "tails" in the same way that you inter¬
lock your fingers together. It is one of the strongest edge joints and is
used in making desk and bureau drawers because of the constant
pulling and pushing these joints will receive.
In summary, joining two pieces of wood is not simply a matter of
nailing them together—it is an art that has been developed over the last
seven thousand years. In each case, the particular wood joint selected
should reflect the specific purposes for which the joint will be used.

from The Way to Rainy Mountain

by N. Scott Momaday

A single knoll rises out of the plain in Oklahoma, north and west of the
Wichita range. For my people, the Kiowas, it is an old landmark, and
they gave it the name Rainy Mountain. The hardest weather in the
world is there. Winter brings blizzards, hot tornadic winds arise in the
 Writing Thoughtfully About Sensory Perceptions 215

Butt joint Vertical Horizontal Dovetail joint

miter joint miter joint

Mortise and tenon or

Dado joint Rabbet joint tongue and groove

Figure 6.5

spring, and in summer the prairie is an anvil's edge. The grass turns
brittle and brown, and it cracks beneath your feet. There are green belts
along the rivers and creeks, linear groves of hickory and pecan, willow
and witch hazel. At a distance in July or August the steaming foliage
seems almost to writhe in fire. Great green and yellow grasshoppers are
everywhere in the tall grass, popping up like corn to sting the flesh, and
tortoises crawl about on the red earth, going nowhere in the plenty of
time. Loneliness is an aspect of the land. All things in the plain are iso¬
late; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one tree or
one man. To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun
at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion. Your imagination comes
to life, and this, you think, is where Creation was begun.
I returned to Rainy Mountain in July. My grandmother had died in
the spring, and I wanted to be at her grave. Now that I can have her only
in memory, I see my grandmother in the several postures that were pe¬
culiar to her: standing at the wood stove on a winter morning and turn¬
ing meat in a great iron skillet; sitting at the south window, bent above
her beadwork, and afterwards, when her vision failed, looking down
for a long time into the fold of her hands; going out upon a cane, very
slowly as she did when the weight of age came upon her; praying. I
Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

remember her most often at prayer. She made long, rambling prayers
out of suffering and hope, having seen many things. I was never sure
that I had the right to hear, so exclusive were they of all mere custom
and company. The last time I saw her she prayed standing by the side
of her bed at night, naked to the waist, the light of a kerosene lamp mov-
ing upon her dark skin. Her long black hair, always drawn and braided
in the day, lay upon her shoulders and against her breasts like a shawl.
I do not speak Kiowa, and I never understood her prayers, but there
was something inherently sad in the sound, some merest hesitation
upon the syllables of sorrow. She began in a high and descending pitch,
exhausting her breath to silence; then again and again—and always the
same intensity of effort, of something that is, and is not, like urgency in
the human voice. Transported so in the dancing light among the shad¬
ows of her room, she seemed beyond the reach of time. But that was il¬
lusion; I think I knew then that I should not see her again.
Once there was a lot of sound in my grandmother's house, a lot of
coming and going, feasting and talk. The summers there were full of ex¬
citement and reunion. The Kiowas are a summer people; they abide the
cold and keep to themselves, but when the season turns and the land
becomes warm and vital they cannot hold still; an old love of going re¬
turns upon them. The aged visitors who came to my grandmother's
house when I was a child were made of lean and leather, and they bore
themselves upright. They wore great black hats and bright ample shirts
that shook in the wind. They rubbed fat upon their hair and wound
their braids with strips of colored cloth. Some of them painted their
faces and carried the scars of old and cherished enmities. They were an
old council of warlords, come to remind and be reminded of who they
were. Their wives and daughters served them well. The women might
indulge themselves; gossip was at once the mark and compensation of
their servitude. They made loud and elaborate talk among themselves,
full of jest and gesture, fright and false alarm. They went abroad in
fringed and flowered shawls, bright beadwork and German silver. They
were at home in the kitchen, and they prepared meals that were
banquets.
Now there is a funereal silence in the rooms, the endless wake of
some final word. The walls have closed in upon my grandmother's
house. When I returned to it in mourning, I saw for the first time in my
life how small it was. It was late at night, and there was a white moon,
nearly full. I sat for a long time on the stone steps by the kitchen door!
From there I could see out across the land; I could see the long row of
trees by the creek, the low light upon the rolling plains, and the stars of
the Big Dipper. Once I looked at the moon and caught sight of a strange
thing. A cricket had perched upon the handrail, only a few inches away.
My line of vision was such that the creature filled the moon like a fossil.
It had gone there, I thought, to live and die, for there, of all places, was
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perceptions of Sequences 217

its small definition made whole and eternal. A warm wind rose up and
purled like the longing within me.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 6.3

Creating Objective and Subjective Descriptions
Write two separate paragraphs in which you describe the same person or ob¬
ject in the two ways discussed above. That is, one paragraph will be as objec¬
tive as possible; the other, mainly subjective in order to create the impression
that you want your readers to have. Each paragraph should be of about six to
eight sentences.
Which of these paragraphs will have a strong topic sentence? Why? Which
will not have a topic sentence or will have one that makes no claim? Why? (If
you need a review, see your handbook about topic sentences.)

Writing Thoughtfully About Perceptions of Sequences

Chronological patterns and process patterns of thinking organize events or
ideas in terms of their occurrence in time, though the two patterns tend to dif¬
fer in focus. The chronological pattern of thinking organizes something into
a series of events in the sequence in which they occurred. Many chronologies
are narratives or stories. For example, when we relate a personal experience
in the order in which the events occurred, we are presenting it chronologi¬
cally. The process mode of thinking organizes an activity into a series of steps
necessary for reaching a certain end. Here the focus is on describing aspects
of growth, development, or change, as we might do when explaining how to
prepare a favorite dish or perform a new dance. Processes involve causally
connected steps, whereas many chronologies are ordered by time alone.

Chronological Relationships
The simplest examples of time-ordered patterns are chronological descrip¬
tions such as logs or diaries, in which people record events that occurred at
given points in time. Perhaps the oldest and most universal form of chrono¬
logical expression is the narrative, a way of thinking and communicating in
which someone tells a story about real or fictional experiences. Many people
who study communication believe that narrative is a starting point for other
patterns of presentation because we often process our perceptions to our¬
selves in storylike (or filmlike) ways. Then, if we wish to shape what we write
or say into exposition, or argument, or poetry, we move away from "simple"
narrative and emphasize claims and evidence or images.
218 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

Another basic aspect of narration is that every human culture has used
narratives to pass on values and traditions from one generation to the next,
as is exemplified by such enduring works as the Odyssey, the Bible, and the
Koran. One of America's great storytellers, Mark Twain, once said that a good
story has to accomplish something and arrive somewhere. In other words, if
a story is to be effective in engaging the interest of the audience, it has to have
a purpose. The purpose may be to provide more information on a subject, to
illustrate an idea, to lead the audience to a particular way of thinking, or to
entertain. An effective narrative does not merely record the complex, ran¬
dom, and often unrelated events of life. Instead, it has focus, an ordered
structure, and a meaningful point of view.
Writers and speakers often use narratives as examples of the points that
they are trying to make. In previous Writing Projects, you did so in order to
examine some of your own thinking experiences. In the Writing Project at the
end of this chapter, you will again write a narrative, but this time you will con¬
nect it to a social issue, rather than to a personal concern. Effective thinkers
and writers understand the weakness, as well as the strength, of this kind of
support, usually called anecdotal evidence. A story can illustrate a point, of¬
ten very effectively; but such evidence cannot really prove anything. Anecdo¬
tal evidence provides a good starting point for more rigorous thinking.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 6.4

Analyzing a Chronological Narrative

Read the following chronologically presented narrative by Maria Muniz,- then
write answers to these questions in your journal.

1. What point is Muniz making with her narrative? Where does she state it? Are
her statements well placed? Why?
2. If you or other members of your family have recently come to the United
States, draft a similar narrative. What point do you want to make? If your fam¬
ily has been here for generations, draft a fictional narrative in the voice of
one of the first arrivals. What point do you want to make?

from Back, But Not Home

by Maria Muniz

With all the talk about resuming diplomatic relations with Cuba, and
with the increasing number of Cuban exiles returning to visit friends
and relatives, I am constantly being asked, "Would you ever go back?"
In turn, I have asked myself, "Is there any reason for me to go?" I have
had to think long and hard before finding my answer. Yes.
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perceptions of Sequences 219

I came to the United States with my parents when I was almost five
years old. We left behind grandparents, aunts, uncles and several
cousins. I grew up in a very middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn.
With one exception, all my friends were Americans. Outside of my fam¬
ily, I do not know many Cubans. I often feel awkward visiting relatives
in Miami because it is such a different world. The way of life in Cuban
Miami seems very strange to me and I am accused of being too "Amer¬
icanized." Yet, although I am now an American citizen, whenever any¬
one has asked me my nationality, I have always and unhesitatingly
replied, "Cuban."
Outside American, inside Cuban.
I recently had a conversation with a man who generally sympathizes
with the Castro regime. We talked of Cuban politics and although the
discussion was very casual, I felt an old anger welling inside. After 16
years of living an "American" life, I am still unable to view the revolu¬
tion with detachment or objectivity. I cannot interpret its results in so¬
cial, political or economic terms. Too many memories stand in my way.
And as I listened to this man talk of the Cuban situation, I began to
remember how as a little girl I would wake up crying because I had
dreamed of my aunts and grandmothers and I missed them. I remem¬
bered my mother's trembling voice and the sad look on her face when¬
ever she spoke to her mother over the phone. I thought of the many
letters and photographs that somehow were always lost in transit. And
as the conversation continued, I began to remember how difficult it of¬
ten was to grow up Latina in an American world.
It meant going to kindergarten knowing little English. I'd been in this
country only a few months and although I understood a good deal of
what was said to me, I could not express myself very well. On the first
day of school I remember one little girl's saying to the teacher: "But how
can we play with her? She's so stupid she can't even talk!" I felt so help¬
less because inside I was crying, "Don't you know I can understand
everything you're saying?" But I did not have words for my thoughts
and my inability to communicate terrified me.
As I grew a little older, Latina meant being automatically relegated
to the slowest reading classes in school. By now my English was fluent,
but the teachers would always assume I was somewhat illiterate or
slow. I recall one teacher's amazement at discovering I could read and
write just as well as her American pupils. Her incredulity astounded
me. As a child, I began to realize that being Latina would always mean
proving I was as good as the others. As I grew older, it became a matter
of pride to prove I was better than the others.
As an adult I have come to terms with these memories and they don't
hurt as much. I don't look or sound very Cuban. I don't speak with an
accent and my English is far better than my Spanish. I am beginning my
career and look forward to the many possibilities ahead of me.
But a persistent little voice is constantly saying, "There's something
 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

missing. It's not enough." And this is why when I am now asked, "Do
you want to go back?" I say "yes" with conviction.
I do not say to Cubans, "It is time to lay aside the hurt and forgive
and forget." It is impossible to forget an event that has altered and
scarred all our lives so profoundly.
But I find I am beginning to care less and less about politics. And I
am beginning to remember and care more about the child (and how
many others like her) who left her grandma behind. I have to return to
Cuba one day because I want to know that little girl better.
When I try to review my life during the past 16 years, I almost feel as
if I've walked into a theater right in the middle of a movie. And I'm
afraid I won't fully understand or enjoy the rest of the movie unless I
can see and understand the beginning. And for me, the beginning is
Cuba. 1 don't want to go "home" again; the life and home we all left be¬
hind are long gone. My home is here and I am happy. But I need to talk
to my family still in Cuba.
Like all immigrants, my family and I have had to build a new life
from almost nothing. It was often difficult, but I believe the struggle
made us strong. Most of my memories are good ones.
But I want to preserve and renew my cultural heritage. I want to keep
"la Cubana" within me alive. I want to return because the journey back
will also mean a journey within. Only then will I see the missing piece.

Process Relationships
A second type of time-ordered thinking pattern is the process relationship,
which focuses on relating aspects of the growth and development of an event
or an experience. From birth, we are involved with processes in every facet of
life. They can be classified in various ways: natural (such as growing physi¬
cally), mechanical (such as assembling a bicycle), physical (such as learning a
sport), mental (such as developing our thinking), and creative (such as writing
a poem).
Performing a process analysis involves two basic tasks. The first is to di¬
vide the process being analyzed into parts or stages. The second is to explain
the movement of the process through these parts or stages from beginning to
end. The stages identified should be separate and distinct and should involve
no repetition or significant omissions.
A process analysis attempts to achieve either of two goals. One goal is to
give step-by-step instruction on how to perform an activity, such as taking a
photograph or changing a tire. The other goal is to give information about a
process, not to teach someone how to perform it. For example, a biology
teacher would explain the process of photosynthesis to help students
understand how green plants function, not to teach them how to transform
sunlight into chlorophyll. Instructions use the pronoun you; explanations do
not. (This is a good time to ask your professor and consult your handbook as
to when to use you in college writing—and when not to use it.)
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perceptions of Sequences 221

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 6.5

Analyzing Process Writing
After you read the two passages that follow, write answers to these questions
in your journal.

1. What is the goal of each paragraph? How can you tell?

2. What are some words in each paragraph that indicate process?

Jacketing was a sleight-of-hand I watched with wonder each time, and I

have discovered that my father was admired among sheepmen up and
down the valley for Inis skill at it: He was just pretty catty at that, the way
he could get that ewe to take on a new lamb every time. Put simply, jack¬
eting was a ruse played on a ewe whose lamb had died. A substitute lamb
quickly would be singled out, most likely from a set of twins. Sizing up
the tottering newcomer. Dad would skin the dead lamb, and into the tiny
pelt carefully snip four leg holes and a head hole. Then the stand-in lamb
would have the skin fitted onto it like a snug jacket on a poodle. The next
step of disguise was to cut out the dead lamb's liver and smear it several
times across the jacket of pelt. In its borrowed and bedaubed skin, the
new baby lamb then was presented to the ewe. She would sniff the baby
impostor endlessly, distrustful but pulled by the blood-smell of her own.
When in a few days she made up her dim sheep's mind to accept the
lamb, Dad snipped away the jacket and recited his victory: Mother him
like hell now, don't ye? See what a hellava dandy lamb I got for ye, old
sister? Who says I couldn't jacket day onto night if I wanted to, now-I-
ask-ye? —Ivan Doig, This House of Sky

If you are inexperienced in relaxation techniques, begin by sitting in a

comfortable chair with your feet on the floor and your hands resting eas¬
ily in your lap. Close your eyes and breathe evenly, deeply, and gently. As
you exhale each breath let your body become more relaxed. Starting with
one hand direct your attention to one part of your body at a time. Close
your fist and tighten the muscles of your forearm. Feel the sensation of
tension in your muscles. Relax your hand and let your forearm and hand
become completely limp. Direct all your attention to the sensation of re¬
laxation as you continue to let all tension leave your hand and arm. Con¬
tinue this practice once or several times each day, relaxing your other hand
and arm, your legs, back, abdomen, chest, neck, face, and scalp. When you
have this mastered and can relax completely, turn your thoughts to scenes
of natural tranquillity from your past. Stay with your inner self as long as
you wish, whether thinking of nothing or visualizing only the loveliest of
images. Often you will become completely unaware of your surround-
222 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

ings. When you open your eyes you will find yourself refreshed in mind
and body. —Laurence J. Peter, The Peter Prescription

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 6.6

Writing Process Descriptions

Write two parasraphs about two processes that you understand very well. In
one, give instructions to a specific audience who would profit from learning
how to perform this activity. In the other, explain—but do not give instructions.
(What pronoun should not appear in the second paragraph?)

THINKING ^WRITING ACTIVITY 6.7

Analyzing the Process of Dying

Read “We Are Breaking the Silence About Death" and write answers to these
questions in your journal.

1. Where in this essay is the process explained? Identify the steps that are given.
2. Obviously, the process discussed in this piece is not a mechanical one, but
a complex emotional and psychological sequence. Think of another such
human process, perhaps one that you have experienced. What is it and
what are its stages?
3. Write your personal reaction to the ideas in this essay. If someone close to
you has died recently, you may have strong reactions. If you have not expe¬
rienced a loved one’s death, you might respond with less emotion. Do you
want to share this writing? Why or why not?
4. This article was first published in 1976. Are the concepts in it still relevant?
What connections do you see with current questions about the "right to die”?

from We Are Breaking the Silence About Death

by Daniel Goleman

Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kiibler-Ross and I were to meet and fly together

to Colorado Springs, where she was to give a workshop for nurses, doc¬
tors and volunteers who work with dying patients. Our flight was soon
to board, but there was no sign of Kiibler-Ross. Then she appeared,
bustling down the corridor, a small, wiry woman carrying two huge
shoulder-bags. After the briefest exchange of amenities, she explained
that she was concerned that one of her patients might be late for the
flight. The patient was to be one of 12 dying people at the seminar. They
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perceptions of Sequences 223

would teach those who work with the dying by sharing their private
fears and hopes.
At the last minute her patient, an emaciated but smiling woman,
showed up at the gate. Kiibler-Ross and I had planned to talk on the
plane, but instead she spent the entire flight giving her patient emergency
oxygen. Later I learned that Kiibler-Ross had met her patient the week be¬
fore. She saw that the woman had only a few more weeks or months to
live, and learned that she had never traveled far from her hometown. So,
on the spur of the moment, Kubler-Ross invited her to come along as her
guest. She should, the doctor felt, live her remaining days fully.
Kiibler-Ross began her work with the dying in the mid '60s when she
decided to interview a dying patient for a medical-school seminar she
was teaching. She searched the school's 600-bed hospital, asking the
staff on each ward if there were any dying patients. On every ward she
got the same answer: No. Yet on any given day in a hospital that size,
many patients are near death. When she then went back and asked
about specific patients, their doctors reluctantly admitted that they
were terminally ill.
Medical schools in those days avoided the topic of death and dying.
Medical staffs treated the physical problems of their dying patients but,
more often than not, ignored the fact of approaching death. Virtually no
one, the doctor included, was comfortable with the fact of death. It was
taboo, best kept out of sight and out of mind.
Once a patient died, he vanished. One of Kiibler-Ross's students re¬
alized that in all her months as a hospital resident she could hardly re¬
call seeing a dead person. In part she chose to avoid them, but there was
also "the remarkable disappearing act that occurs as the body is cleverly
whisked out of sight..."
In the decade since Kiibler-Ross first gave her seminar on dying, the
taboo has weakened. Death is in vogue as a topic of books, seminars,
scholarly articles, and classes at every level from college down to ele¬
mentary school. There are two professional journals devoted to the
study of death, dozens of volunteer groups working with the dying,
and one or two medical facilities geared solely to helping people die
with dignity.
There is no single cause for this change, but Elisabeth Kiibler-Ross
has done more to further it than any other person. Through her 1969
best seller On Death and Dying, her seminars for physicians, clergy, and
others who work with dying people, and her public talks, Kubler-Ross
has alerted us to a new way of handling dying.
Kiibler-Ross is Chairman of the National Advisory Council to Hos¬
pice in New Haven, Connecticut, which leads the way in humane care
of the dying. Modeled on a similar center in London, New Haven Hos¬
pice puts Kiibler-Ross's advice into practice with a team on call around-
the-clock to help people die in their own homes rather than in a strange
hospital. Hospice has plans for building a center for dying patients. In
Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

contrast to policy at most hospitals, family members will be encouraged

to join the medical staff in caring for their dying relatives. Visiting hours
will be unlimited, and patients, children and even pets will be free to
visit.
Kiibler-Ross s natural openness toward the dying reflects her experi¬
ence as a child in rural Switzerland. In her community, she saw death
confronted with honesty and dignity. She also has the authority of one
whose medical practice has been limited for the last decade to dying pa¬
tients and their families; lately, her practice has been restricted to dying
children. Her public life as an author and a lecturer allows her a rare
luxury in her medical work; she charges no one for her services.
Kubler-Ross s career has been unusually humanitarian from the
start. Before entering medical school in Switzerland, she worked at the
close of the Second World War in eastern Europe, helping the survivors
of bombed-out cities and death camps. After becoming a psychiatrist,
she gravitated to treating chronic schizophrenics, and then to work with
retarded children, whose mental slowness was compounded by being
deaf, dumb or blind.
From the thousands of hours she has spent with patients facing
death, Kiibler-Ross has charted the psychological stages people typi¬
cally go through once they know they are soon to die. Though any sin¬
gle person need not go through the entire progression, most everyone
facing death experiences at least one of these stages. The usual progres¬
sion is from denial of death through rage, bargaining, depression, and
finally, acceptance.
These reactions are not restricted to dying, but can occur with a loss
of any kind. We all experience them to some degree in the ordinary
course of life changes. Every change is a loss, every beginning an end.
In the words of the Tibetan poet Milarepa, "All worldly pursuits end in
sorrow, acquisition in dispersion, buildings in destruction, meetings in
separation, birth in death."
A person s first reaction to the news that he has a terminal disease is
most often denial. The refusal to accept the fact that one is soon to die
cushions death s impact. It gives a person time to come to grips with the
loss of everything that has mattered to him.
Psychoanalysts recognize that at the unconscious level, a person
does not believe he will die. From this refusal to believe in one's own
death springs the hope that, despite a life-threatening illness, one will
not die. This hope can take many forms: that the diagnosis is wrong,
that the illness is curable, that a miracle treatment will turn up. As de¬
nial fades into a partial acceptance, the person's concern shifts from the
hope of longer life to the wish that his or her family will be well and his
affairs taken care of after his death.
Denial too often typifies the hospital staff's reaction to a patient who
faces death. Doctors and nurses see themselves as healers; a dying
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perceptions of Sequences 225

patient threatens this role. Further, a person who cannot contemplate

his own death, even if he is a physician, feels discomfort with someone
who is dying. For this reason hospital staff often enclose the dying pa¬
tient in a cocoon of medical details that keeps death under wraps.
Sociologists Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss studied the mutual
pretense that often exists when patient and staff know the patient is dy¬
ing. A staff member and a terminal patient might safely talk about his
disease, they found, so long as they skirt its fatal significance. But they
were most comfortable when they stuck to safe topics like movies and
fashions—anything, in short, that signifies life going on as usual.
This is a fragile pretense, but not one that either party can easily
break. Glaser and Strauss found that a patient would sometimes send
cues to the staff that he wanted to talk about dying, but the nurses and
doctors would decide not to talk openly with him because they feared
he would go to pieces. The patient would openly make a remark ac¬
knowledging his death, but the doctor or nurse would ignore him.
Then, out of tact or empathy for the embarrassment or distress he
caused, the patient would resume his silence. In this case, it is the staff's
uneasiness that maintains the pretense, not the patient's.
In the reverse instance, a doctor may give the patient an opening to
talk about dying, and have the patient ignore it. Kiibler-Ross urges hos¬
pital staff members to let the patient know that they are available to talk
about dying, but not to force the subject on the patient. When he no
longer needs to deny his death, the patient will seek out a staff member
and open the topic.
When the family knows a patient is dying and keeps the secret from
him, they create a barrier that prevents both patient and family from
preparing for the death. The dying patient usually sees through a make-
believe, smiling mask. Genuine emotions are much easier on the pa¬
tient, allowing relatives to share his feelings. When his family can be
open about the seriousness of the illness, there is time to talk and cry to¬
gether and to take care of important matters under less emotional
pressure.
20 A student nurse hospitalized for a fatal illness wrote to her profes¬
sional colleagues in a nursing journal: "You slip in and out of my room,
give me medications and check my blood pressure. Is it because I am a
student nurse myself that I sense your fright? If only we could be hon¬
est, both admit our fears, touch one another. Then it might not be so
hard to die—in a hospital—with friends close by."
Denial becomes increasingly hard as the patient's health deterio¬
rates. Although mutual pretense avoids embarrassment and emotional
strains, it sacrifices valuable time in which the dying patient and his
family could take care of unfinished emotional and practical matters,
like unsettled arguments or unwritten wills, that death will forestall for¬
ever.
226 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

Kiibler-Ross feels that a period of denial is useful if it gives the pa¬

tient and his family time to find a way to deal with the stark truth of
death. But when denial persists until the person dies, the survivors'
grief is needlessly prolonged by the guilt and regrets. Often patients
near death say they wished they had been told they were dying sooner
so that they could have prepared themselves and their families.
A few rare patients, though, need to cling to denial because the real¬
ity is too much to bear. When those closest to the person offer no love or
comfort, as when children of the dying patient blame the parent for de¬
serting them, the patient may deny the inevitable to the very end. But
this is rare; of 500 patients, Kiibler-Ross found only four who refused to
the last to admit that they were dying.
Once a dying patient accepts the invitation to talk about his death,
Kiibler-Ross tries to help him recognize any unfinished business that
needs his attention. Straightforward truth helps the dying person fully
live the time left. She tries to elicit their hidden hopes and needs, then
find someone who can fulfill these needs.
Physical pain sometimes prevents a dying patient from making the
best use of his remaining days. When his pain is overwhelming, he ei¬
ther becomes preoccupied with it or dependent on painkillers that leave
him groggy. Kubler-Ross controls pain with Brompton's mixture. This
old-time formula of morphine, cocaine, alcohol, syrup, and chloroform
water dulls the patient's pain without dimming his alertness.
When a patient stops denying his impending death, the feelings that
most often well up are rage and anger. The question, "Why me?" is
asked with bitterness. The patient aims his resentment at whoever is
handy, be it staff, friends or family. Healthy people remind the patient
that he will die while they live. The unfairness of it all arouses his rage.
He may be rude, uncooperative, or downright hostile. For example,
when a nurse was late with his pain medication, the patient snapped
"Why are you late? You don't care if I suffer. Your coffee break is more
important to you than my pain."
As the rage abates the patient may start to bargain with God or fate,
trying to arrange a temporary truce. The question switches from "Why
me?" to "Why now?" He hopes for more time to finish things, to put his
house in order, to arrange for his family's future needs, to make a will.
The bargain with God takes the form of the patient promising to be
good or to do something in exchange for another week, month or vear
of life. y
With full acceptance of his approaching death, a person often be¬
comes depressed. Dying brings him a sense of hopelessness, helpless¬
ness and isolation. He mourns past losses, and regrets things left
undone or wrongs he's committed. One of Kiibler-Ross's patients, for
example, regretted that when his daughter was small and needed him,
he was on the road making money to provide a good home. Now that
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perceptions of Sequences 227

he was dying, he wanted to spend every moment he could with her, but
she was grown and had her own friends. He felt it was too late. At this
stage the dying person starts to mourn his own death, the loss of all the
people and things he has found meaningful, the plans and hopes never
to be fulfilled. Kiibler-Ross calls this kind of depression a "preparatory
grief." It allows a person to get ready for his death by letting go of his
attachments to life.
During this preparatory grief, the patient may stop seeing family and
friends, and become withdrawn and silent. His outer detachment
matches the inner renouncement of what once mattered to him. Family
members sometimes misinterpret his detachment as a rejection. Kiibler-
Ross helps them to see that the patient is beginning to accept his death.
Hence, he needs much less contact with family and friends.
After this preparatory mourning, the dying person can reach a
peaceful acceptance. He is no longer concerned with the prolongation
of his life. He has made peace with those he loves, settled his affairs, re¬
linquished his unfinished dreams. He may feel an inner calm, and be¬
come mellow in outlook. He can take things as they come, including the
progress of his illness. People bring him pleasure, but he no longer
speaks of plans for the future. His focus becomes the simple joys of
everyday life; he enjoys today without waiting for tomorrow. At this
stage, the person is ready to live his remaining days fully and die well.
The story of a modem Zen master's death shows this frame of mind. As
the master lay dying, one of his students brought him a special cake, of
which he had always been fond. With a wan smile the master slowly ate
a piece of the cake. As he grew weaker still, his students leaned close
and asked if he had any final words for them. "Yes," he said, as they
leaned forward eagerly. "My, but this cake is delicious."
What the dying teach us, says Kiibler-Ross, is how to live. In sum¬
ming up what she has learned from her dying patients, she likes to re¬
cite a poem by Richard Allen that goes:

... as you face your death, it is only the love you have given and re¬
ceived which will count... if you have loved well then it will have been
worth it... but if you have not death will always come too soon and be
too terrible to face.
228 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

WRITING PROJECT

The readings and Thinking-^Writing Activities in this chapter encouraged

you to think about describing and narrating in ways appropriate to the pur¬
pose of a particular piece of writing. Be sure to reread what you wrote for
those activities because you may be able to use some of it to help yourself
complete this project.

_WRITING PROJECT Narrative That Illuminates an Issue

in Society
Write an essay telling about an experience that either you or some¬
one you know had that threw some light on an issue in society. The
issue may perhaps involve race, ethnicity, gender, education, hous¬
ing, or employment. Be sure to choose an issue you are concerned
about. Find a magazine or newspaper article dealing with the issue
and quote from it at least once in your essay. Document the quoted
material according to your professor’s instructions. If she or he re¬
quires an academic documentation format, such as Modern Lan¬
guage Association (MLA) or American Psychological Association
(APA), be sure to conform exactly to the models in your handbook.
After drafting your essay, revise it to the best of your ability. Follow
instructions given by your professor as to topic limitations, length,
format, and so on.

The following principles for writing illustrative narratives are not fixed
rules; you may have good reason for not following some of them. In general,
though, they should help you to write an effective, responsibly handled essay.
1. Make clear that the story you tell is an example or illustration, not an item
of conclusive evidence.
2. Identify the relevant issue fully so that the narrative has a meaningful con¬
text.
3. State your thesis well; place it effectively in your paper.
4. Use description to introduce your readers to the people involved; to let
your readers visualize the place; to invoke several of their senses. Consider
whether subjective or objective description, or a combination of the two,
will serve your purpose better.
5. Tell the story as fully as seems appropriate, without either running on and
on or leaving out important details or events.
6. Be sure to begin and end effectively. The conclusion is likely to be espe¬
cially important in this essay, since you may want to reiterate your main
point there.

Begin by considering the key elements in the Thinking^ > Writing

Model.
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perceptions of Sequences 229

Purpose
You have a variety of purposes here. You have the opportunity to recall and
relate a significant experience. You also can think about a social issue that
concerns you and learn more about it by finding the required article. In ad¬
dition, you will be improving your ability to connect what you read with
your own ideas, something you must do regularly as a college student. Most
important, you can inform your classmates, your professor, and your other
readers about the issue of concern to you. Finally, by connecting the issue
with what the author of the article has written and with an actual experience,
you will increase its meaning to your audience. As a student in a college writ¬
ing class, you have the additional purpose of completing your assignment
well.

Audience
As always, you are a member of your own audience and perhaps the person
who will enjoy the narrative most, since it is connected with your life. If you
are telling someone else's story, that person, of course, will be a most inter¬
ested reader. Your classmates will be a good audience, both to learn from
your narrative and to share your experience; in addition, they are a valuable
audience as peer reviewers of your draft, reacting as intelligent readers who
are also immersed in the assignment. Of course, anyone else involved with
the issue would also benefit from your essay. Finally, your professor remains
the audience who will judge how well you have planned, drafted, and re¬
vised. As a writing teacher, he or she cares about a clear focus, logical orga¬
nization, specific details, and correctness. Keep these in mind as you revise,
edit, and proofread.

Subject
Although you and your readers are doubtless concerned about many social
issues, both you and they may need to be reminded of how one such issue af¬
fects your life or that of someone you know. People do at times forget how
connected they may be to situations the media present. In addition, it is valu¬
able to reflect on the validity of anecdotal evidence: To what extent does your
narrative illuminate a widespread situation in society?

Writer
You are in a dual position here. You are, of course, the expert on your own
story. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage: no one can argue with
you about your story, but you need to remember that your audience was not
there. You must provide them with sufficient background and description to
make them feel as if they did share the experience with you, but you don't
want to overwhelm them with details. Therefore, you will need to be selec¬
tive as you decide what to include and what to omit. Yet you are not the ex¬
pert on the article from which you plan to quote, so do think carefully about
what it says and where to refer to it in your own work.
230 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

The Writing Process

The following sections will guide you through the stages of generating, plan-
ning, drafting, and revising as you work on an illustrative and descriptive
narrative.

Generating Ideas
1. You may have had (or witnessed or heard about) such a meaningful expe¬
rience that you know immediately what you want to narrate. If not, think
about events that were worrisome, or frightening, or amusing, or exciting
and then think again about the context of the event.
2. You may be deeply involved in some social issue because of who you are
or where you live or which organizations you support. If so, you should
have no problem identifying the concern you want to address. If not, look
around, talk with friends and family members, read newspapers and mag¬
azines, and watch the news.
3. Think locally. Look at problems in your community or at issues connected
with your college or your job. Then try to recall any personal experiences
related to these concerns.
4. Think of how a local issue may be part of a national or a worldwide one.
Here, you will need to consult and acknowledge sources if you have not
had direct experience with such situations.

Defining a Focus
Draft a thesis sentence that connects your experience with the issue you plan
to write about. You may want to emphasize the directness of the connection,
or you may need to show that what is not obvious is indeed related. You may
want to emphasize a time element: "I didn't understand at the time, but now
I see that..." or "I knew at that moment that..." Perhaps you will want to
focus on the impact of this issue on your life and on the lives of others.

Organizing Ideas
This essay is likely to be organized somewhat like Maria Muniz's essay on
pages 218-220, with introductory and concluding paragraphs that state the
point, and the narration in between. Or statements about the issue might be
made regularly throughout the narration, as different events show various
aspects of the situation. Some writers might tell the story first and then con¬
nect it with the issue. You need to consider what arrangements will best help
your audience see the connection that you want to make. Be sure to select
carefully and place carefully the material quoted from your source, and to
connect that material smoothly with your writing by introducing it and com¬
menting on it.
 The Writing Process 231

Drafting
Begin with the easiest part to write, possibly the experience itself. Tell it fully;
then plan to increase its effectiveness by including sharp details and a tight
sequence of events at the revision stage. The paragraphs within the narrative
may or may not have topic sentences. This is one of the differences between
narration and exposition. Since your purpose is to connect the experience
with an issue, you may want to have topic sentences for the paragraphs
which do that.
After you have drafted the narrative, draft the paragraphs that state the
thesis and make the connection between the experience and the issue. Then
establish and write any needed transitions between and among the sections
of your draft.

Revising
Ideally, at this point, you should put your draft aside for a day or two. If
deadlines won't permit that, then at least take a break before you try to revise.
When you are ready to "re-see" your writing, begin by reading it through
slowly, preferably aloud. If possible, have someone whose opinion you re¬
spect read it; if you are fortunate enough to have peer review in class, ask for
feedback and consider it carefully. Then work through the hierarchy of revi¬
sion concerns that follow.

1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.

■ Does it fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ Is the organization logical?
■ Do you provide enough evidence?
■ Is your point of view consistent?
■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs?
■ Have you documented information from your sources accurately?
■ Have you used quotation marks with direct quotes or set them off by
indenting them?
2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.
■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
■ Is the introduction appropriate for the rest of the draft?
■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a "visible" struc¬
ture?
■ If you are working with an "invisible" structure, is your focus clearly
implied?
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
232 Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

■ Does each body paragraph develop a different idea?

■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Is your conclusion effective?
3. Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.
■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
■ Are sentences with blended quotations (that is, quotations that are inte¬
grated into the syntax of the sentence instead of introduced with "He
said ..." or "She said ...") complete and easy to read?
■ Are quotations shortened with ellipsis marks accurate and readable?
■ Are there several choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Are any sentences vague?
■ Do any sentences need to be corrected for standard English grammar
and usage?
4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.
■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are any words misspelled?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
■ Does your paper make a good impression by being neat?
■ Is there anything else you could do to improve your draft?

Proofreading
After you prepare a final draft, check for standard grammar and punctuation.
Proofread carefully for omitted words or punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread carefully
for the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.

Student Essay
The following essay shows how one student responded to this assignment.
 Student Writing 233

STUDENT WRITING
Unfair Expectations
by Anselica Willey

The most influential people in a child’s world are her or his parents.
Parents, therefore, should try to be aware of their biases based on tra¬
ditions inherited from their upbringings that are not appropriate for a
younger generation. If they are not careful, parents can limit the po¬
tential of their children by not recognizing that some preconceived
notions that they carry over from their childhoods are not helpful to
their children. This situation happened in my life when my father
couldn’t reconcile his generation's version of gender roles with a more
modern version for the raising of his children.
My father is a born and bred southern gentleman. Being raised on
the eastern shore (across the Bay), he connects with the old southern
way of doing things. He plants Crepe Myrtles, refuses to walk ahead
of a lady through a doorway, and speaks with a slight accent if you
catch him off guard. However, he also has a tendency towards admir¬
ing "southern" ladies who carry parasols to shield the sun and act out
an overplayed shyness to attract "gentleman callers." Somehow he en¬
visioned me as fitting into that mold, and he took it upon himself to
make sure that I lived up to those standards which he admired.
The earliest incident which I can recall of my father acting on
these notions occurred when my best childhood friend from across
the road took off his shirt to relieve the heat of a summer day. Watch¬
ing this, through my five year old eyes, I decided to also cool down
by removing my shirt. Upon seeing this, my father flew out of the
house and herded me inside, all the while trying to explain why I
could not do the same thing as a boy. These tendencies became most
apparent after the birth of my brother.
Though I was five years his senior, my brother was treated as if,
solely due to his gender, he was entitled to special privileges in some
areas. For example, he was allowed to get his driver’s license at the
minimum age of sixteen because he had to take girls out on dates. I
was told that I would not be allowed to have my license until I turned
eighteen because it was not a necessity—my dates could pick me up.
Never mind that I had a job, internship, and a school career to main¬
tain. While I’m sure that he sent my brother back to wash his face
when we were going out, his nudges at me to go back and put on
some make-up and change to a dress had a negative effect on my atti¬
tude and my self-esteem.
Today I know that my father was not trying to inhibit me. He was
simply acting on the way he was raised. He probably wanted me to
Chapter 6 Exploring Relationships in Space and Time

become the kind of woman that one article calls "The Princess, the
most desirable woman in patriarchal culture and fantasy," a woman
who "waits for a man to make her life meaningful" (Gilbert and Web¬
ster 47). However, I don’t want to be a helpless, flirtatious "princess.”
I want to be an independent, capable person who has good relation¬
ships with men, and with women. I like to look nice, but I don’t want
to worry very much about make-up and dresses. Most of my fellow,
female students feel the same way that I do.
I suppose that there will always be generation gaps. However,
parents need to think about their hand-me-down ideals and try to
have fair expectations that fit with their children’s generation’s ideas.

Work Cited
Gilbert, Lucy, and Paula Webster. "The Dangers of Feminity," The Gender
Reader, ed. Evelyn Ashton Jones and Gary Olson. Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
1991.
 CHAPTER 7

Exploring Comparative Relationships—

Writing About Perspectives

Critical Thinking Focus: Critically evaluating perceptions

Writing Focus: Comparing and contrasting
Reading Theme: Recognizing differing perspectives
Writing Project: Critically evaluating different perspectives on an
issue or an event

Thinking Critically About Differing Perceptions

Chapter 6 introduced the concept of perceptions and showed how writers
use their perceptions when they describe, narrate, and explain processes.
Chapter 7 emphasizes critical evaluation of perceptions. It will help you
think about the differing perspectives people bring to what they say and
write. Because so many life situations and college assignments involve com¬
paring and contrasting perspectives in an organized way, we will be consid¬
ering some steps and strategies involved in thinking critically and writing
thoughtfully about differing perspectives. The Writing Project asks you to
analyze different perspectives on one issue or event.
To understand how various people can be exposed to the same stimuli or
events and yet have different perceptions, it helps to imagine that each of us
views the world through a personal pair of "contact lenses," an analogy we
introduced in the previous chapter. We aren't usually aware that we are wear¬
ing these lenses. Instead, without our realizing it, our lenses act as filters that
select and shape what we perceive. When members of your class had differ¬
ent perceptions of the boy at the desk in Thinking^ >-Writing Activity 6.1,

235
 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

those different perceptions were caused by the different lenses through

which each of you views the world.
To understand the way people perceive the world, we have to under¬
stand their individual lenses, which influence how they actively select, orga¬
nize, and interpret the events in their experience. A diagram of the process
might look like Figure 7.1:

Figure 7.1

Consider the following pairs of statements. In each pair, two people are
being exposed to the same basic stimulus or event, yet each has a very dif¬
ferent perception of the experience. Explain how the various perceptions
might have developed.

1. a. That chili was much too spicy to eat.

Explanation:
b. That chili needed more hot peppers and chili powder to spice it up a
little. F
Explanation:
2. a. People who wear lots of make-up and jewelry are very sophisticated.
Explanation:
b. People who wear lots of make-up and jewelry are ostentatious and
overdressed.
Explanation:
3. a. The music young people enjoy listening to is a highly creative cultural
expression.
Explanation:
b. The music young people enjoy listening to is obnoxious noise.
Explanation:
 Thinking Critically About Differing Perceptions 237

Effective critical thinkers are aware of the lenses that they—and others—are
wearing. People unaware of the nature of their own lenses can often mistake
their own perceptions for objective truth, not having examined either the
facts or others' perceptions of a given issue.
In Figure 7.2, "The Investigation," each witness is giving what he or she
(or it!) believes is an accurate description of the man in the center, and all the
witnesses are unaware that their descriptions are being influenced by who
they are and the way that they perceive things.

The Investigation

Fisure 7.2

Selecting Perceptions
We tend to select perceptions about subjects that have been called to our atten¬
tion. For instance, at the age of three, one child suddenly became aware of
beards. On entering a subway car, she would ask in a penetrating voice, "Any
beards here?" and proceed to count them out loud. In so doing, she naturally
focused her parents' attention—as well as that of other passengers—on beards.
Another aspect of our "perceiving" lenses is our tendency to notice what
238 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

we need, desire, or otherwise find of interest. When we go shopping, we fo¬

cus on whatever items we are looking for. Walking down the street, we tend
to notice certain kinds of people or events while completely ignoring others.
Even while watching a movie or reading a book, we tend to concentrate on
and remember the elements we find of interest. Another person can perform
exactly the same actions—shop at the same store, walk down the same street,
read the same book, or go to the same movie—and yet see and remember en¬
tirely different things. What we do or do not see does indeed depend largely
on our personal interests, needs, and desires.
Feelings moods or emotional states—can also affect the perceptions we
select. When in a bad mood, we often are ready to focus on every potential
insult or criticism by others—and ready to respond the same way.
Although we tend to focus on what is familiar, normally we are not
aware of doing so. In fact, we often take for granted what is familiar to us—
the taste of chili or eggs, the street that we live on, our family or friends—and
normally don't think about our perception of it. When something happens
that makes the familiar seem strange and unfamiliar, though, we become
aware of our perceptions and start to evaluate them.
To sum up, we actively select our perceptions on the basis of
■ what has been called to our attention,
■ what our needs or interests are,
■ what our moods or feelings are, and
■ what seems familiar or unfamiliar.

The way we select perceptions is a paramount factor in shaping the

lenses through which we view the world.

Organizing Perceptions
Not only do you actively select certain perceptions; you also actively organize
them into meaningful relationships and patterns. Consider the series of lines
in Figure 7.3.

Did you perceive them as individual lines, or did you group them into
pairs? We naturally try to order and organize what we are experiencing into
patterns and relationships that make sense to us. When we succeed in doing
so, the completed whole means more than the sum of the individual parts.
 Thinking Critically About Differing Perceptions 239

We are continually organizing the world in this way at virtually every wak¬
ing moment. We do not live in a world of isolated sounds, patches of color,
random odors, and individual textures. Instead, we live in a world of objects
and people, language and music—a world in which all these individual
stimuli are woven together. We are able to perceive this world of complex ex¬
periences because we can organize the individual stimuli we are receiving
into relationships that have meaning to us.

Interpreting Perceptions
Besides selecting and organizing perceptions, we also actively interpret what
we perceive: we are figuring out what something means. One of the elements
that influences interpretations is the context, or overall situation, within
which the perception is occurring. For example, imagine that you see a man
running down the street. Your interpretation of his action will depend on the
specific context. For example, is there a bus waiting at the comer? Is a police
officer running behind him? Is the man wearing a jogging suit?
We are continually trying to interpret what we perceive, whether it is a
design, someone else's behavior, or a social situation. As in the example of
someone running down the street, many perceptions can be interpreted in
more than one way. When a situation has more than one possible interpreta¬
tion, it is ambiguous. The more ambiguous a situation is, the greater its pos¬
sible meanings or interpretations.
Our perceptions reveal the lenses through which we are viewing each
event. Watching our team play baseball, for example, we may really believe
that the opposing runner was "out by a mile"—even though the replay may
show otherwise.
Similarly, feelings can influence our interpretations of experience. When
we feel happy and optimistic, the world often seems friendly and the future
full of possibilities, and we interpret problems as challenges to be overcome.
When we are depressed or unhappy, we may perceive the world entirely dif¬
ferently. The future can appear full of problems that are trying to overcome
us. In both cases the outer circumstances may be very similar; it is our own
interpretations of the world through our lenses that varies so completely.
Perceptions of the world are also influenced by the way we were brought
up by our training and education. Consider two people watching a football
game. One of them, who has very little understanding of football, sees merely
a bunch of grown men hitting each other for no apparent reason. The other
person, who loves football, sees complex play patterns, daring coaching
strategies, effective blocking and tackling techniques, and zone defenses with
seams that the receivers are trying to split. Both spectators have their eyes
focused on the same event, but they are perceiving two entirely different
situations. Their perceptions differ because each person is actively selecting,
organizing, and interpreting the available stimuli in different ways.
 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

The same is true of any situation in which we are perceiving something

about which we have special knowledge or expertise. The following are ex¬
amples.

■ A builder examining the construction of a new house

■ A music lover attending a concert
■ A naturalist experiencing the outdoors
■ A cook tasting a dish just prepared
■ A lawyer examining a contract
■ An art lover visiting a museum

Think about a special area of interest or expertise that you have and how your
perceptions of that area differ from those of people who don't share your
knowledge. Ask other class members about their areas of expertise. Notice
how their perceptions of those areas differ from your own because of these
classmates' greater knowledge and experience.
In all the cases just discussed, the perceptions of the knowledgeable per¬
son differ substantially from those of a person who lacks the same specialized
knowledge. The following reading illuminates this point.

from Two Ways of Viewing the River

by Mark Twain

Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to
know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as
I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But
I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be re¬
stored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry, had gone
out of the majestic river! I still kept in mind a certain wonderful sunset
which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. Abroad expanse
of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue
brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black
and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon
the water, in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings,
that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest
was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating
lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely
wooded and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in
one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above
the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough
that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing
from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody
heights, soft distances, and over the whole scene, far and near, the dis-
 Thinking Critically About Differing Perceptions 241

solving lights drifted steadily, enriching it every passing moment with

new marvels of coloring.
I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The
world was new to me and I had never seen anything like this at home.
But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the
glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight
wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased alto¬
gether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I
should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have com¬
mented upon it inwardly after this fashion: "This sun means that we are
going to have wind tomorrow; that floating log means that the river is
rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff
reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if
it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dis¬
solving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the
slick water over yonder are a warning that the troublesome place is
shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest
is the 'break' from a new snag and he has located himself in the very
best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree,
with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a
body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the
friendly old landmark?"
No, the romance and beauty were all gone from the river. All the
value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it
could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since
those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely
flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples
above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown thick
with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he
ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally
and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And
doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most
by learning his trade?

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 7.1

Five Accounts of the Assassination of Malcolm X
Let’s examine a situation in which a number of different people had somewhat
different perceptions about an event they were describes. The second chap¬
ter of this book contains a passage by Malcolm X (pages 35-37), written when
he was just beginning his life’s work. A few years later, this work came to a
tragic end with his assassination at a meeting in Harlem. As you read through
the various accounts, pay particular attention to the perceptions each
Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

presents. After reading the accounts, analyze some of the differences in these
perceptions by writing answers in your journal to the questions that follow. You
may decide to limit your answer to two or three of the accounts.
1. What details of the events has each writer selected to focus on?
2. How has each writer organized the details selected? Remember that most
newspapers present what they consider the most important information first
and the least important last.
3. How does each writer interpret Malcolm X, his followers, the gunmen, and
the significance of the assassination?
4. How has each author used language to express his or her perspective and to
influence the reader’s thinking?

The New York Times (February 22,1965)

Malcolm X, the 39-year-old leader of a militant Black Nationalist move¬

ment, was shot to death yesterday afternoon at a rally of his followers
in a ballroom in Washington Heights. The bearded Negro extremist had
said only a few words of greeting when a fusillade rang out. The bullets
knocked him over backwards.
A 22-year-old Negro, Thomas Hagan, was charged with the killing.
The police rescued him from the ballroom crowd after he had been shot
and beaten.
Pandemonium broke out among the 400 Negroes in the Audubon
Ballroom at 160th Street and Broadway. As men, women and children
ducked under tables and flattened themselves on the floor, more shots
were fired. The police said seven bullets struck Malcolm. Three other
Negroes were shot. Witnesses reported that as many as 30 shots had
been fired. About two hours later the police said the shooting had ap¬
parently been a result of a feud between followers of Malcolm and
members of the extremist group he broke with last year, the Black
Muslims....

Life (March 5,1965)

His life oozing out through a half dozen or more gunshot wounds in his
chest, Malcolm X, once the shrillest voice of black supremacy, lay dying
on the stage of a Manhattan auditorium. Moments before, he had
stepped up to the lectern and 400 of the faithful had settled down ex¬
pectantly to hear the sort of speech for which he was famous—flaying
the hated white man. Then a scuffle broke out in the hall and Malcolm's
bodyguards bolted from his side to break it up—only to discover that
they had been faked out. At least two men with pistols rose from the au¬
dience and pumped bullets into the speaker, while a third cut loose at
close range with both barrels of a sawed-off shotgun. In the confusion
the pistol man got away. The shotgunner lunged through the crowd and
out the door, but not before the guards came to their wits and shot him
 Thinking Critically About Differing Perceptions 243

in the leg. Outside he was swiftly overtaken by other supporters of Mal¬

colm and very likely would have been stomped to death if the police
hadn't saved him. Most shocking of all to the residents of Harlem was
the fact that Malcolm had been killed not by "whitey" but by members
of his own race.

The New York Post (February 22,1965)

They came early to the Audubon Ballroom, perhaps drawn by the ex¬
pectation that Malcolm X would name the men who firebombed his
home last Sunday.... I sat at the left in the 12th row and, as we waited,
the man next to me spoke of Malcolm and his followers: "Malcolm is
our only hope. You can depend on him to tell it like it is and to give
Whitey hell."
There was a prolonged ovation as Malcolm walked to the rostrum.
Malcolm looked up and said "A salaam aleikum (Peace be unto you)"
and the audience replied "We aleikum salaam (And unto you, peace)."
Bespectacled and dapper in a dark suit, sandy hair glinting in the
light, Malcolm said: "Brothers and sisters ..He was interrupted by
two men in the center of the ballroom, who rose and, arguing with each
other, moved forward. Then there was a scuffle at the back of the room.
I heard Malcolm X say his last words: "Now, brothers, break it up," he
said softly. "Be cool, be calm."
Then all hell broke loose. There was a muffled sound of shots and
Malcolm, blood on his face and chest, fell limply back over the chairs
behind him. The two men who had approached him ran to the exit on
my side of the room, shooting wildly behind them as they ran. I heard
people screaming, "Don't let them kill him." "Kill those bastards." At
an exit I saw some of Malcolm's men beating with all their strength on
two men. I saw a half dozen of Malcolm's followers bending over his in¬
ert body on the stage. Their clothes stained with their leader's blood.
Four policemen took the stretcher and carried Malcolm through the
crowd and some of the women came out of their shock and one said: "I
hope he doesn't die, but I don't think he's going to make it."

Associated Press (February 22,1965)

A week after being bombed out of his Queens home. Black Nationalist
leader Malcolm X was shot to death shortly after 3 (p.m.) yesterday at a
Washington Heights rally of 400 of his devoted followers. Early today,
police brass ordered a homicide charge placed against a 22-year-old
man they rescued from a savage beating by Malcolm X supporters after
the shooting. The suspect, Thomas Hagan, had been shot in the left leg
by one of Malcolm's bodyguards as, police said, Hagan and another
assassin fled when pandemonium erupted. Two other men were
wounded in the wild burst of firing from at least three weapons. The
firearms were a .38, a .45 automatic and a sawed-off shotgun. Hagan al-
244 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

legedly shot Malcolm X with the shotgun, a double-barrelled sawed-off

weapon on which the stock also had been shortened, possibly to facili¬
tate concealment. Cops charged Reuben Frances, of 871 E. 179th St.,
Bronx, with felonious assault in the shooting of Hagan, and with Sulli¬
van Law violation—possession of the .45. Police recovered the shotgun
and the .45.

The Amsterdam News (February 27, 1965)

"We interrupt this program to bring you a special newscast...the

announcer said as the Sunday afternoon movie on the TV set was halted
temporarily. "Malcolm X was shot four times while addressing a crowd
at the Audubon Ballroom on 166th Street." "Oh no!" That was my first
reaction to the shocking event that followed one week after the slender,
articulate leader of the Afro-American Unity was routed from his East
Elmhurst home by a bomb explosion. Minutes later we alighted from a
cab at the corner of Broadway and 166th St. just a short 15 blocks from
where I live on Broadway. About 200 men and women, neatly dressed,
were milling around, some with expressions of awe and disbelief. Oth¬
ers were in small clusters talking loudly and with deep emotion in their
voices. Mostly they were screaming for vengeance. One woman, small,
dressed in a light gray coat and her eyes flaming with indignation, ar¬
gued with a cop at the St. Nicholas corner of the block. "This is not the
end of it. What they were going to do to the Statue of Liberty will be
small in comparison. We black people are tired of being shoved
around." Standing across the street near the memorial park one of Mal¬
colm's close associates commented: "It's a shame." Later he added that
"if it's war they want, they'll get it." He would not say whether Elijah
Muhammed's followers had anything to do with the assassination.
About 3:30 p.m. Malcolm X's wife, Betty, was escorted by three men and
a woman from the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Tears streamed
down her face. She was screaming, "They killed him!" Malcolm X had
no last words.... The bombing and burning of the No. 7 Mosque early
Tuesday morning was the first blow by those who are seeking revenge
for the cold-blooded murder of a man who at 39 might have grown to
the stature of respectable leadership.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 7.2

Analyzing and Contrasting Perspectives of an Event

Locate three different newspaper or magazine accounts of a significant event—
a court decision, a compromise between heads of state, and a political
demonstration are possible topics. Analyze the perceptual "lenses" of each of
the writers by answering the questions in Thinkings Writing Activity 7.1.
 Thinking Critically About Differing Perceptions 245

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 7.3

Seven Accounts of Events at Tiananmen Square, 1989

In the spring of 1989, a vigorous pro-democracy movement erupted in Beijing,
the capital of China. Protesting the authoritarian control of the Communist
regime, thousands of students staged demonstrations, engaged in hunger
strikes, and organized marches involving hundreds of thousands of people.
The geographical heart of these activities was the historic Tiananmen Square,
taken over by the demonstrators who had erected a symbolic "Statue of Lib¬
erty." On June 4, 1989, the fledgling pro-democracy movement came to a
bloody end when the Chinese army entered Tiananmen Square and seized
control of it. The following are various accounts of this event from different
sources. After analyzing these accounts, construct your own version of what
you believe took place on that day. Use these questions to guide your analysis
of the varying accounts:

■ Does the account provide a convincing description of what took place?

■ What reasons and evidence support the account?
■ How reliable is the source? What are the author’s perceiving lenses, which
might influence his or her account?
■ Is the account consistent with other reliable descriptions of this event?

The New York Times (June 4,1989)

Tens of thousands of Chinese troops retook the center of the capital from
pro-democracy protesters early this morning, killing scores of students
and workers and wounding hundreds more as they fired submachine
guns at crowds of people who tried to resist. Troops marched along the
main roads surrounding central Tiananmen Square, sometimes firing in
the air and sometimes firing directly at crowds who refused to move. Re¬
ports on the number of dead were sketchy. Students said, however, that
at least 500 people may have been killed in the crackdown. Most of the
dead had been shot, but some had been run over by personnel carriers
that forced their way through the protesters' barricades.
A report on the state-run radio put the death toll in the thousands
and denounced the Government for the violence, the Associated Press
reported. But the station later changed announcers and broadcast an¬
other report supporting the governing Communist party. The official
news programs this morning reported that the People's Liberation
Army had crushed a "counter-revolutionary rebellion." They said that
more than 1,000 police officers and troops had been injured and some
killed, and that civilians had been killed, but did not give details.
246 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

Deng Xiaoping, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, as re¬

ported in Beijing Review (July 10-16,1989)

The main difficulty in handling this matter lay in that we had never ex¬
perienced such a situation before, in which a small minority of bad
people mixed with so many young students and onlookers. Actually,
what we faced was not just some ordinary people who were misguided,
but also a rebellious clique and a large number of the dregs of society.
The key point is that they wanted to overthrow our state and the Party.
They had two main slogans: to overthrow the Communist Party and
topple the socialist system. Their goal was to establish a bourgeois re¬
public entirely dependent on the West.
During the course of quelling the rebellion, many comrades of ours
were injured or even sacrificed their lives. Some of their weapons were
also taken from them by the rioters. Why? Because bad people mingled
with the good, which made it difficult for us to take the firm measures
that were necessary. Handling this matter amounted to a severe politi¬
cal test for our army, and what happened shows that our People's Lib¬
eration Army passed muster. If tanks were used to roll over people, this
would have created a confusion between right and wrong among the
people nationwide. That is why I have to thank the PLA officers and
men for using this approach to handle the rebellion. The PLA losses
were great, but this enabled us to win the support of the people and
made those who can't tell right from wrong change their viewpoint.
They can see what kind of people the PLA are, whether there was
bloodshed at Tiananmen, and who were those that shed blood.
This shows that the people's army is truly a Great Wall of non and
steel of the Party and country. This shows that no matter how heavy the
losses we suffer and no matter how generations change, this army of
ours is forever an army under the leadership of the Party, forever the de¬
fender of the country, forever the defender of socialism, forever the de¬
fender of the public interest, and they are the most beloved of the
people. At the same time, we should never forget how cruel our ene¬
mies are. For them we should not have an iota of forgiveness.

Reporter (eyewitness account), reported in The New York Times

(June 4,1989)

Changan Avenue, or the Avenue of Eternal Peace, Beijing's main east-

west thoroughfare, echoed with screams this morning as young people
carried the bodies of their friends away from the front lines. The dead
or seriously wounded were heaped on the backs of bicycles or tricycle
rickshaws and supported by friends who rushed through the crowds,
sometimes sobbing as they ran.
The avenue was lit by the glow of several trucks and two armed
personnel carriers that students and workers set afire, and bullets
 Thinking Critically About Differing Perceptions 247

Aftermath of the bloody clash between a prodemocracy student move¬

ment and the Chinese army on June 4,1989. © Patrick Durand/SYGMA

swooshed overhead or glanced off buildings. The air crackled almost

constantly with gunfire and tear gas grenades.
Students and workers tried to resist the crackdown, and destroyed at
least sixteen trucks and two armored personnel carriers. Scores of stu¬
dents and workers ran alongside the personnel carriers, hurling concrete
blocks and wooden staves into the treads until they ground to a halt.
They then threw firebombs at one until it caught fire, and set the other
alight after first covering it with blankets soaked in gasoline. The drivers
escaped the flames, but were beaten by students. A young American
man, who could not be immediately identified, was also beaten by the
crowd after he tried to intervene and protect one of the drivers.
Clutching iron pipes and stones, groups of students periodically ad¬
vanced toward the soldiers. Some threw bricks and firebombs at the
lines of soldiers, apparently wounding many of them. Many of those
killed were throwing bricks at the soldiers, but others were simply
watching passively or standing at barricades when soldiers fired di¬
rectly at them.
5 It was unclear whether the violence would mark the extinction of the
seven-week-old democracy movement, or would prompt a new phase in
the uprising, like a general strike. The violence in the capital ended a pe¬
riod of remarkable restraint by both sides, and seemed certain to arouse
Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

new bitterness and antagonism among both ordinary people and Com¬
munist Party officials for the Government of Prime Minister Li Peng.
Our Government is already done with," said a young worker who
held a rock in his hand, as he gazed at the army forces across Tianan¬
men Square. "Nothing can show more clearly that it does not represent
the people." Another young man, an art student, was nearly incoherent
with grief and anger as he watched the body of a student being carted
away, his head blown away by bullets. "Maybe we'll fail today," he
said. "Maybe we'll fail tomorrow. But someday we'll succeed. It's a his¬
torical inevitability."

Official Chinese Government Accounts

Comrades, thanks for your hard work. We hope you will continue
with your fine efforts to safeguard security in the capital."
—Prime Minister Li Peng (addressing a group of soldiers after the
Tiananmen Square event)

"It never happened that soldiers fired directly at the people."

—General Li Zhiyun

"The People's Liberation Army crushed a counter-revolutionary rebel¬

lion. More than 1,000 police officers and troops were injured and killed,
and some civilians were killed."
—Official Chinese news program

"At most 300 people were killed in the operation, many of them sol¬
diers."
—Yuan Mu, official government spokesman

"Not a single student was killed in Tiananmen Square."

—Chinese army commander

"My government has stated that a mob led by a small number of people
prevented the normal conduct of the affairs of state. There was, I regret
to say, loss of life on both sides. I wonder whether any other govern¬
ment confronting such an unprecedented challenge would have han¬
dled the situation any better than mine did."
—Han Xu, Chinese ambassador to the United States

The New York Times (June 5,1989)

It was clear that at least 300 people had been killed since the troops first
opened fire shortly after midnight on Sunday morning but the toll
may be much higher. Word-of-mouth estimates continued to soar,
some reaching far into the thousands.... The student organization that
 Shaping and Changing Perceptions 249

coordinated the long protests continued to function and announced

today that 2,600 students were believed to have been killed. Several
doctors said that, based on their discussions with ambulance drivers
and colleagues who had been on Tiananmen Square, they estimated
that at least 2,000 had died. Soldiers also beat and bayoneted students
and workers after daybreak on Sunday, witnesses said, usually after
some provocation but sometimes entirely at random. "I saw a young
woman tell the soldiers that they are the people's army, and that they
mustn't hurt the people," a young doctor said after returning from
one clash Sunday. "Then the soldier shot her, and ran up and bayo¬
neted her."

Xiao Bin (eyewitness account immediately after the event)

Tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled over students, squashing
them into jam, and the soldiers shot at them and hit them with clubs.
When students fainted, the troops killed them. After they died, the
troops fired one more bullet into them. They also used bayonets. They
were too cruel. I never saw such things before.

Xiao Bin (account after being taken into custody by Chinese authorities)
I never saw anything. I apologize for bringing great harm to the party
and the country.

Shaping and Changing Perceptions

Just as Mark Twain changed his perceptions of the river with increased
knowledge, your ways of viewing the world are developed over a long pe¬
riod of time through the experiences you have, the knowledge you acquire,
and your thinking about, or reflecting on, these experiences and your new
knowledge. As you think critically about your perceptions, you learn more
from your experiences and more about how you make sense of the world.
This understanding may strengthen your perceptions, or it may change them.
Read the following student passage and consider the way the writer's expe¬
riences—and her reflection on these experiences—contributed to shaping her
perspective on the world.
250 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

STUDENT WRITING
Acquired Knowledge
Anonymous

When news of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome first began

to spread, it was just another one of those issue's on the news that I
felt did not really concern me. Along with cancer, leukemia, and kid¬
ney failure, I knew these diseases ran rampant across the country but
they didn’t affect me.
Once the AIDS crisis became a prevalent problem in society, I be¬
gan to take a little notice of it, but my interest only extended as far as
taking precautions to insure that I would not contract the disease.
Sure, I felt sorry for all the people who were dying from it, but again
it was not my problem.
My father was an intravenous drug user for as long as I can remem¬
ber. This was a fact of life when I was growing up. I knew that what he
was doing was wrong, and that eventually he would die from it, but I
also knew that he would never change.
On July 27th, my father died. An autopsy showed his cause of
death as pneumonia and tuberculosis, seemingly natural causes.
However, I was later informed that these were two very common
symptoms related to carriers of the HIV virus. My father's years of
drug abuse had finally caught up with him. He had died from
AIDS.
My father’s death changed my life. Prior to that, I had always felt
that as long as a situation did not directly affect me, it was really no
concern of mine. I felt that somewhere, someone would take care of
it. Having a crisis strike so close to me made me wake up to reality.
Suddenly I became acutely aware of all the things that are wrong in
the world. I began to see the problems of AIDS, famine, homeless¬
ness, unemployment, and others from a personal point of view and I
began to feel that I had an obligation to join the crusade to do'some-
thing about these problems.
I organized a youth coalition called UPLIFT INC. In this group
we meet and talk about the problems in society, as well as the
everyday problems that any of our members may have in their lives.
We organize shows (talent shows, fashion shows) and give a large
portion of our proceeds to the American Foundation for AIDS Re¬
search, the Coalition for the Homeless, and many other worthy
organizations.
Now I feel that I am doing my duty as a human being by trying to
help those who are less fortunate than myself. My father’s death gave
I me insight into my own mortality. Now I know that life is too short not
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 251

to only try to enjoy it, but to really achieve something worthwhile out
of it. Material gains matter only if you are willing to take your good
fortune and spread it around to those who could use it.

Thinking Critically About Perceptions

So far, we have emphasized the great extent to which, by selecting, organiz¬
ing, and interpreting, we actively participate in what we perceive. We have
suggested that each of us views the world through his or her own unique
lenses, that no two of us perceive the world in exactly the same way.
Because we actively participate in selecting, organizing, and interpreting
the sensations we experience, however, our perceptions are often incomplete,
inaccurate, or subjective. To complicate the situation even more, our own lim¬
itations in perceiving are not the only ones that can cause us problems. Other
people often purposefully create perceptions and misperceptions. An adver¬
tiser who wants to sell a product may try to create the impression that our
lives will be changed if we use it. Or a person who wants to discredit some¬
one else may spread untrue rumors about her.
The only way of correcting the mistakes, distortions, and incompleteness
of our perceptions is to become aware of the ordinarily unconscious process by
which we perceive and make sense of the world. By becoming aware of this
process, we can think critically about what is going on and correct our mis¬
takes and distortions. In other words, we can use our critical thinking abili¬
ties to create a clearer and more informed idea of what is taking place. We
cannot rely on perception alone, and if we remain unaware of how it operates
and unaware of our active role, we will be unable to control it. We will be con¬
vinced that the way we see the world is the way the world is, even when our
perceptions are mistaken, distorted, or incomplete.
The first step in critically examining perceptions is to be willing to ask
questions about them. As long as we believe that the way we see things is the
only way to see them, we will be unable to recognize when our perceptions
are distorted or inaccurate.
For instance, if you are certain that your interpretation of the boy shown
at the computer in Thinking^Writing Activity 6.1 is the only correct one, you
will not be likely to try and see other possible interpretations. But if you are
willing to question your perception ("What are some other possible interpre¬
tations?"), you will open the way to more fully developing your perception
of what is taking place.
Besides asking questions, we have to make ourselves aware of the per¬
sonal factors our lenses bring to our perceptions. Each of us brings to every
252 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

situation a whole collection of expectations, interests, fears, and hopes that

can influence what we are perceiving.
Consider the following situations:

■ You ve been fishing all day without a nibble. Suddenly you get a strike!
You reel it in, but just as you're about to pull the fish into the boat, it
frees itself from the hook and swims away. When you get home later,
your friends ask you, "How large was the fish that got away?"
■ The teacher asks you to evaluate the performance of a classmate who is
giving a report to the class. You don't like this other student because he
acts as if he's superior to all the other students in the class. How do you
evaluate his report?
■ You are asked to estimate the size of an audience attending an event
that your organization has sponsored. How many people are there?

In each of these cases, your perceptions might be influenced by whatever

hopes, fears, or prejudices you brought to the situation, causing your obser¬
vations to become distorted or inaccurate. Although usually you cannot elim¬
inate the personal feelings that influence your perceptions, you can become
aware of these feelings and try to control them.
As was explained in Chapter 2, critical thinkers strive to see things from
different perspectives. One of the best ways to do so is by communicating
with others and engaging in dialogue with them. This means exchanging and
critically examining ideas in an open and organized way. Similarly, dialogue
is one of the main ways to check out perceptions—by asking others what
their perceptions are and comparing and contrasting these wTith one's own.
This is exactly what you did when you discussed the different possible
interpretations of the boy at the computer. By exchanging your perceptions
with those of other members of the class, you developed a more complete
sense of how differently events can be viewed, as well as an appreciation of
the reasons supporting the different perspectives. Looking for reasons to sup¬
port perceptions involves trying to discover independent proof or evidence
regarding the perception, and it is possible to evaluate the accuracy of per¬
ceptions when evidence is available in the form of records, photographs
videotapes, or the results of experiments. What independent forms of evi¬
dence could verify perceptions about the boy at the computer?
Thinking critically about perceptions means trying to avoid developing
impulsive or superficial ones that we are unwilling to change. As has been ex¬
plained in Chapter 2, a critical thinker is thoughtful in approaching the world
and open to modifying his or her views in the light of new information or bet¬
ter insight. Consider the following perceptions:

■ Women are very emotional.

■ Politicians are corrupt.
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 253

■ Teenagers are wild and irresponsible.

■ People who are good athletes are usually poor students.
■ Men are thoughtless and insensitive.

These types of general perceptions are known as stereotypes because they ex¬
press a belief about an entire group of people without recognizing the indi¬
vidual differences among members of the group. For instance, it is probably
accurate to say that there are some politicians who are corrupt, but this is not
the same as saying that all, or even most, politicians are corrupt. Stereotypes
affect our perceptions of the world because they encourage us to form an in¬
accurate and superficial idea of a whole group of people ("Teenagers are
reckless drivers"). When we meet someone who falls into this group, we au¬
tomatically perceive that person as having these stereotyped qualities ("This
person is a teenager, so he is a reckless driver"). Even if we find that the per¬
son does not fit our stereotyped perceptions ("This teenager is not a reckless
driver"), this sort of superficial and thoughtless labeling does not encourage
us to change our perceptions of the group as a whole. Instead, it encourages
us to overlook the conflicting information in favor of our stereotyped per¬
ceptions ("All teenagers are reckless drivers—except for this one"). In con¬
trast, when we are perceiving in a thoughtful fashion, we try to see what a
person is like as an individual, instead of trying to fit him or her into a pre¬
existing category.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 7.4

Stereotyping
1. In your journal, describe an incident in which you were perceived as a
stereotype because of your age, ethnic or religious background, employ¬
ment, accent, or place of residence.
2. Describe how it felt to be stereotyped in this way.
3. Conclude by explaining what you think are the best ways to overcome
stereotypes.

Sometimes stereotypes are so built into a culture that it is difficult to be

aware of them until they are brought to one's attention. The perspective, or
view of the world, that the culture presents may not even acknowledge the
possibility of other perspectives, so it can be very difficult for an individual
to become aware of any and then to "switch lenses" to try those viewpoints.
True critical thinkers can and do switch lenses and in their writing, help
others to do so as well. The following readings, one by a man born in the
Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

eighteenth century, one by a man born in the nineteenth century, and two by
women born in the twentieth century, all attempt this difficult task.

from Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America

by Benjamin Franklin

Savages we call them, because their Manners differ from ours, which
we think the Perfection of Civility; they think the same of theirs.
Perhaps, if we could examine the Manners of different Nations with
Impartiality, we should find no People so rude, as to be without any
Rules of Politeness; nor any so polite, as not to have some Remains of
Rudeness.
The Indian Men, when young, are Hunters and Warriors; when old.
Counsellors; for all their Government is by Counsel of the Sages; there
is no Force, there are no Prisons, no Officers to compel Obedience," or in¬
flict Punishment. Hence they generally study Oratory, the best Speaker
having the most Influence. The Indian Women till the Ground, dress the
Food, nurse and bring up the Children, and preserve and hand down to
Posterity the Memory of public Transactions. These Employments of
Men and Women are accounted natural and honourable. Having few
artificial Wants, they have abundance of Leisure for Improvement by
Conversation. Our laborious Manner of Life, compared with theirs,
they esteem slavish and base; and the Learning, on which we value our¬
selves, they regard as frivolous and useless. An Instance of this occurred
at the Treaty of Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, anno 1744, between the Gov¬
ernment of Virginia and the Six Nations. After the principal Business
was settled, the Commissioners from Virginia acquainted the Indians
by a Speech, that there was at Williamsburg a College, with a Fund for
Educating Indian youth; and that, if the Six Nations would send down
half a dozen of their young Lads to that College, the Government would
take care that they should be well provided for, and instructed in all the
Learning of the White People. It is one of the Indian Rules of Politeness
not to answer a public Proposition the same day that it is made; they
think it would be treating it as a light matter, and that they show it Re¬
spect by taking time to consider it, as of a Matter important. They there¬
fore deferr d their Answer till the Day following; when their Speaker
began, by expressing their deep Sense of the kindness of the Virginia
Government, in making them that Offer; "for we know," says he, "that
you highly esteem the kind of Learning taught in those Colleges, and
that the Maintenance of our young Men, while with you, would be very
expensive to you. We are convinc'd, therefore, that you mean to do us
Good by your Proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you, who are
wise, must know that different Nations have different Conceptions of
thmgs; and you will therefore not take it amiss, if our Ideas of this kind
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 255

of Education happen not to be the same with yours. We have had some
Experience of it; Several of our young People were formerly brought up
at the Colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all
your Sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad Runners,
ignorant of every means of living in the Woods, unable to bear either
Cold or Hunger, knew neither how to build a Cabin, take a Deer, or kill
an Enemy, spoke our Language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit
for Hunters, Warriors, nor Counsellors; they were totally good for noth¬
ing. We are however not the less oblig'd by your kind Offer, tho' we de¬
cline accepting it; and, to show our grateful Sense of it, if the Gentlemen
of Virginia will send us a Dozen of their Sons, we will take great Care of
their Education, instruct them in all we know, and make Men of them."
Having frequent Occasions to hold public Councils, they have ac¬
quired great Order and Decency in conducting them. The old Men sit in
the foremost Ranks, the Warriors in the next, and the Women and Chil¬
dren in the hindmost. The Business of the Women is to take exact No¬
tice of what passes, imprint it in their Memories (for they have no
Writing), and communicate it to their Children. They are the Records of
the Council, and they preserve Traditions of the Stipulations in Treaties
100 Years back; which, when we compare with our Writings, we always
find exact. He that would speak, rises. The rest observe a profound Si¬
lence. When he has finish'd and sits down, they leave him 5 to 6 Min¬
utes to recollect, that, if he has omitted anything he intended to say, or
has any thing to add, he may rise again and deliver it. To interrupt an¬
other, even in common Conversation, is reckon'd highly indecent. How
different this is from the conduct of a polite British House of Commons,
where scarce a day passes without some Confusion, that makes the
Speaker hoarse in calling to Order; and how different from the Mode of
Conversation in many polite Companies of Europe, where, if you do
not deliver your Sentence with great Rapidity, you are cut off in the
middle of it by the Impatient Loquacity of those you converse with, and
never suffer'd to finish it!
The Politeness of these Savages in Conversation is indeed carried to
Excess, since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the Truth of
what is asserted in their Presence. By this means they indeed avoid Dis¬
putes; but then it becomes difficult to know their Minds, or what Im¬
pression you make upon them. The Missionaries who have attempted
to convert them to Christianity, all complain of this as one of the great
Difficulties of their Mission. The Indians hear with Patience the Truths
of the Gospel explain'd to them, and give their usual Tokens of Assent
and Approbation; you would think they were convinc'd. No such mat¬
ter. It is mere Civility.
A Swedish Minister, having assembled the chiefs of the Susquehanah
Indians, made a Sermon to them, acquainting them with the principal
historical Facts on which our Religion is founded; such as the Fall of our
256 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

first Parents by eating an Apple, the coming of Christ to repair the Mis¬
chief, his Miracles and Suffering, &c. When he had finished, an Indian
Orator stood up to thank him. "What you have told us," says he, "is all
very good. It is indeed bad to eat Apples. It is better to make them all
into Cyder. We are much oblig'd by your kindness in coming so far, to
tell us these Things which you have heard from your Mothers. In re¬
turn, I will tell you some of those we had heard from ours. In the Be¬
ginning, our Fathers had only the Flesh of Animals to subsist on; and if
their Hunting was unsuccessful, they were starving. Two of our young
Hunters, having kill'd a Deer, made a Fire in the Woods to broil some
Part of it. When they were about to satisfy their Hunger, they beheld a
beautiful young Woman descend from the Clouds, and seat herself on
that Hill, which you see yonder among the blue Mountains. They said
to each other, it is a Spirit that has smelt our broiling Venison, and
wishes to eat of it; let us offer some to her. They presented her with the
Tongue; she was pleas'd with the Taste of it, and said, 'Your kindness
shall be rewarded; come to this Place after thirteen Moons, and you
shall find something that will be of great Benefit in nourishing you and
your Children to the latest Generations.' They did so, and, to their Sur¬
prise, found Plants they had never seen before; but which, from that an¬
cient time, have been constantly cultivated among us, to our great
Advantage. Where her right Hand had touched the Ground, they found
Maize; where her left hand had touch'd it, they found Kidney-Beans;
and where her Backside had sat on it, they found Tobacco." The good
Missionary, disgusted with this idle Tale, said, "What I delivered to you
were sacred Truths; but what you tell me is mere Fable, Fiction, and
Falshood." The Indian, offended, reply'd, "My brother, it seems your
Friends have not done you Justice in your Education; they have not well
instructed you in the Rules of common Civility. You saw that we, who
understand and practise those Rules, believ'd all your stories; why do
you refuse to believe ours?"
When any of them come into our Towns, our People are apt to crowd
round them, gaze upon them, and incommode them, where they desire
to be private; this they esteem great Rudeness, and the Effect of the
Want of Instruction in the Rules of Civility and good Manners. "We
have," say they, "as much Curiosity as you, and when you come into
our Towns, we wish for Opportunities of looking at you; but for this
purpose we hide ourselves behind Bushes, where you are to pass, and
never intrude ourselves into your Company."
Their Manner of entering one another's village has likewise its Rules.
It is reckon'd uncivil in travelling Strangers to enter a Village abruptly,
without giving Notice of their Approach. Therefore, as soon as they ar¬
rive within hearing, they stop and hollow, remaining there till invited
to enter. Two old Men usually come out to them, and lead them in.
There is in every Village a vacant Dwelling, called the Strangers' House.
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 257

Here they are plac'd, while the old Men go round from Hut to Hut, ac¬
quainting the Inhabitants, that Strangers are arriv'd, who are probably
hungry and weary; and every one sends them what he can spare of Vict¬
uals, and Skins to repose on. When the Strangers are refresh'd, Pipes
and Tobacco are brought; and then, but not before. Conversation be¬
gins, with Enquiries who they are, whither bound, what News, &c.; and
it usually ends with offers of Service, if the Strangers have occasion of
Guides, or any Necessaries for continuing their Journey; and nothing is
exacted for the Entertainment.
The same Hospitality, esteem'd among them as a principal Virtue, is
practis'd by private Persons; of which Conrad Weiser, our Interpreter,
gave me the following Instance. He had been naturaliz'd among the Six
Nations, and spoke well the Mohock Language. In going thro' the In¬
dian Country, to carry a Message from our Governor to the Council at
Onondaga, he call'd at the Habitation of Canassatego, an old Acquain¬
tance, who embrac'd him, spread Furs for him to sit on, plac'd before
him some boil'd Beans and Venison, and mix'd some Rum and Water
for his Drink. When he was well refresh'd, and had lit his Pipe, Canas¬
satego began to converse with him; ask'd how he had far'd the many
Years since they had seen each other; whence he then came; what occa¬
sion'd the Journey, &c. Conrad answered all his Questions; and when
the Discourse began to flag, the Indian, to continue it, said, "Conrad,
you have lived long among the white People, and know something of
their Customs; I have been sometimes at Albany, and have observed,
that once in Seven Days they shut up their Shops, and assemble all in
the great House; tell me what it is for? What do they do there?" "They
meet there," says Conrad, "to hear and learn good Things." "I do not
doubt," says the Indian, "that they tell you so; they have told me the
same; but I doubt the Truth of what they say, and I will tell you my Rea¬
sons. I went lately to Albany to sell my Skins and buy Blankets, Knives,
Powder, Rum, &c. You know I us'd generally to deal with Hans Han¬
son; but I was a little inclin'd this time to try some other Merchant.
However, I call'd first upon Hans, and asked him what he would give
for Beaver. He said he could not give any more than four Shillings a
Pound; 'but,' says he, 'I cannot talk on Business now; this is the Day
when we meet together to learn Good Things, and I am going to the
Meeting.' So I thought to myself, 'Since we cannot do any Business to¬
day, I may as well go to the meeting too,' and I went with him. There
stood up a Man in Black, and began to talk to the People very angrily. I
did not understand what he said; but, perceiving that he look'd much
at me and at Hanson, I imagin'd he was angry at seeing me there; so I
went out, sat down near the House, struck Fire, and lit my Pipe, wait¬
ing till the Meeting should break up. I thought too, that the Man had
mention'd something of Beaver, and I suspected it might be the Subject
of their Meeting. So, when they came out, I accosted my Merchant.
258 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

'Well, Hans/ says I, 'I hope you have agreed to give more than four
Shillings a Pound.' 'No/ says he, 'I cannot give so much; I cannot give
more than three shillings and sixpence.' I then spoke to several other
Dealers, but they all sung the same song,—Three and sixpence,—Three
and sixpence. This made it clear to me, that my Suspicion was right;
and, that whatever they pretended of meeting to learn good Things, the
real purpose was to consult how to cheat Indians in the Price of Beaver.
Consider but little, Conrad, and you must be of my Opinion. If they met
so often to learn good Things, they would certainly have learnt some be¬
fore this time. But they are still ignorant. You know our Practice. If a
white Man, in travelling thro' our Country, enters one of our Cabins, we
all treat him as I treat you; we dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he
is cold, we give him Meat and Drink, that he may allay his Thirst and
Hunger; and we spread soft Furs for him to rest and sleep on; we de¬
mand nothing in return. But, if I go into a white Man's House at Albany,
and ask for Victuals and Drink, they say, 'Where is your Money?' and if
I have none, they say, 'Get out, you Indian Dog.' You see they have not
yet learned those little Good Things, that we need no Meetings to be in¬
structed in, because our Mothers taught them to us when we were Chil¬
dren; and therefore it is impossible their Meetings should be, as they
say, for any such purpose, or have any such Effect; they are only to con¬
trive the Cheating of Indians in the Price of Beaver."

from The Soul of the Indian

The Great Mystery
by Charles Alexander Eastman

The original attitude of the American Indian toward the Eternal, the
"Great Mystery" that surrounds and embraces us, was as simple as it
was exalted. To him it was the supreme conception, bringing with it the
fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in this life.
The worship of the "Great Mystery" was silent, solitary, free from all
self-seeking. It was silent, because all speech is of necessity feeble and
imperfect; therefore the souls of my ancestors ascended to God in word¬
less adoration. It was solitary, because they believed that He is nearer to
us in solitude, and there were no priests authorized to come between a
man and his Maker. None might exhort or confess or in any way med¬
dle with the religious experience of another. Among us all men were
created sons of God and stood erect, as conscious of their divinity. Our
faith might not be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who were
unwilling to receive it; hence there was no preaching, proselyting, nor
persecution, neither were there any scoffers or atheists.
There were no temples or shrines among us save those of nature. Be¬
ing a natural man, the Indian was intensely poetical. He would deem it
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 259

sacrilege to build a house for Him who may be met face to face in the
mysterious, shadowy aisles of the primeval forest, or on the sunlit bo¬
som of virgin prairies, upon dizzy spires and pinnacles of naked rock,
and yonder in the jeweled vault of the night sky! He who enrobes Him¬
self in filmy veils of cloud, there on the rim of the visible world where
our Great-Grandfather Sun kindles his evening camp-fire. He who rides
upon the rigorous wind of the north, or breathes forth His spirit upon
aromatic southern airs, whose warcanoe is launched upon majestic
rivers and inland seas—He needs no lesser cathedral!
That solitary communion with the Unseen which was the highest
expression of our religious life is partly described in the word hambeday,
literally "mysterious feeling," which has been variously translated
"fasting" and "dreaming." It may better be interpreted as "conscious¬
ness of the divine."
The first hambeday, or religious retreat, marked an epoch in the life of
the youth, which may be compared to that of confirmation or conver¬
sion in Christian experience. Having first prepared himself by means of
the purifying vapor-bath, and cast off as far as possible all human or
fleshly influences, the young man sought out the noblest height, the
most commanding summit in all the surrounding region. Knowing that
God sets no value upon material things, he took with him no offerings
or sacrifices other than symbolic objects, such as paints and tobacco.
Wishing to appear before Him in all humility, he wore no clothing save
his moccasins and breech-clout. At the solemn hour of sunrise or sunset
he took up his position, overlooking the glories of earth and facing the
"Great Mystery," and there he remained, naked, erect, silent, and mo¬
tionless, exposed to the elements and forces of His arming, for a night
and a day to two days and nights, but rarely longer. Sometimes he
would chant a hymn without words, or offer the ceremonial "filled
pipe." In this holy trance or ecstasy the Indian mystic found his highest
happiness and the motive power of his existence.
When he returned to the camp, he must remain at a distance until he
had again entered the vapor-bath and prepared himself for intercourse
with his fellows. Of the vision or sign vouchsafed to him he did not
speak, unless it had included some commission which must be publicly
fulfilled. Sometimes an old man, standing upon the brink of eternity,
might reveal to a chosen few the oracle of his long-past youth.
The native American has been generally despised by his white con¬
querors for his poverty and simplicity. They forget, perhaps, that his re¬
ligion forbade the accumulation of wealth and the enjoyment of luxury.
To him, as to other single-minded men in every age and race, from Dio¬
genes to the brothers of Saint Francis, from the Montanists to the Shak¬
ers, the love of possessions has appeared a snare, and the burdens of a
complex society a source of needless peril and temptation. Further¬
more, it was the rule of his life to share the fruits of his skill and success
Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

with his less fortunate brothers. Thus he kept his spirit free from the
clog of pride, cupidity, and envy, and carried out, as he believed, the di¬
vine decree—a matter profoundly important to him.
It was not, then, wholly from ignorance or improvidence that he
failed to establish permanent towns and to develop a material civiliza¬
tion. To the untutored sage, the concentration of population was the
prolific mother of all evils, moral no less than physical. He argued that
food is good, while surfeit kills; that love is good, but lust destroys; and
not less dreaded than the pestilence following upon crowded and un¬
sanitary dwellings was the loss of spiritual power inseparable from too
close contact with one's fellow-men. All who have lived much out of
doors know that there is a magnetic and nervous force that accumulates
in solitude and that is quickly dissipated by life in a crowd; and even his
enemies have recognized the fact that for a certain innate power and
self-poise, wholly independent of circumstances, the American Indian
is unsurpassed among men.
The red man divided mind into two parts—the spiritual mind and
the physical mind. The first is pure spirit, concerned only with the
essence of things, and it was this he sought to strengthen by spiritual
prayer, during which the body is subdued by fasting and hardship. In
this type of prayer there was no beseeching of favor or help. All matters
of personal or selfish concern, as success in hunting or warfare, relief
from sickness, or the sparing of a beloved life, were definitely relegated
to the plane of the lower or material mind, and all ceremonies, charms,
or incantations designed to secure a benefit or to avert a danger, were
recognized as emanating from, the physical self.
The rites of this physical worship, again, were wholly symbolic, and
the Indian no more worshiped the Sun than the Christian adores the
Cross. The Sun and the Earth, by an obvious parable, holding scarcely
more of poetic metaphor than of scientific truth, were in his view the
parents of all organic life. From the Sun, as the universal father, pro¬
ceeds the quickening principle in nature, and in the patient and fruitful
womb of our mother, the Earth, are hidden embryos of plants and men.
Therefore our reverence and love for them was really an imaginative ex¬
tension of our love for our immediate parents, and with this sentiment
of filial piety was joined a willingness to appeal to them, as to a father,
for such good gifts as we may desire. This is the material or physical
prayer.
The elements and majestic forces in nature. Lightning, Wind, Water,
Fire, and Frost, were regarded with awe as spiritual powers, but always
secondary and intermediate in character. We believed that the spirit
pervades all creation and that every creature possesses a soul in some
degree, though not necessarily a soul conscious of itself. The tree, the
waterfall, the grizzly bear, each is an embodied Force, and as such an
object of reverence.
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 261

The Indian loved to come into sympathy and spiritual communion

with his brothers of the animal kingdom, whose inarticulate souls had
for him something of the sinless purity that we attribute to the innocent
and irresponsible child. He had faith in their instincts, as in a mysteri¬
ous wisdom given from above; and while he humbly accepted the sup¬
posedly voluntary sacrifice of their bodies to preserve his own, he paid
homage to their spirits in prescribed prayers and offerings.
In every religion there is an element of the supernatural, varying
with the influence of pure reason over its devotees. The Indian was a
logical and clear thinker upon matters within the scope of his under¬
standing, but he had not yet charted the vast field of nature or ex¬
pressed her wonders in terms of science. With his limited knowledge of
cause and effect, he saw miracles on every hand,—the miracle of life in
seed and egg, the miracle of death in lightning flash and in the swelling
deep! Nothing of the marvelous could astonish him; as that a beast
should speak, or the sun stand still. The virgin birth would appear
scarcely more miraculous than is the birth of every child that comes into
the world, or the miracle of the loaves and fishes excite more wonder
than the harvest that springs from a single ear of corn.
Who may condemn his superstition? Surely not the devout Catholic,
or even Protestant missionary, who teaches Bible miracles as literal fact!
The logical man must either deny all miracles or none, and our American
Indian myths and hero stories are perhaps, in themselves, quite as cred¬
ible as those of the Hebrews of old. If we are of the modern type of
mind, that sees in natural law a majesty and grandeur far more impres¬
sive than any solitary infraction of it could possibly be, let us not forget
that, after all, science has not explained everything. We have still to face
the ultimate miracle,—the origin and principle of life! Here is the
supreme mystery that is the essence of worship, without which there
can be no religion, and in the presence of this mystery our attitude can¬
not be very unlike that of the natural philosopher, who beholds with
awe the Divine in all creation.
It is simple truth that the Indian did not, so long as his native philos¬
ophy held sway over his mind, either envy or desire to imitate the
splendid achievements of the white man. In his own thought he rose
superior to them! He scorned them, even as a lofty spirit absorbed in
its stern task rejects the soft beds, the luxurious food, the pleasure-
worshiping dalliance of a rich neighbor. It was clear to him that virtue
and happiness are independent of these things, if not incompatible with
them.
There was undoubtedly much in primitive Christianity to appeal to
this man, and Jesus' hard sayings to the rich and about the rich would
have been entirely comprehensible to him. Yet the religion that is
preached in our churches and practiced by our congregations, with its
element of display and self-aggrandizement, its active proselytism, and
Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

its open contempt of all religions but its own, was for a long time ex¬
tremely repellent. To his simple mind, the professionalism of the pulpit,
the paid exhorter, the moneyed church, was an unspiritual and unedi-
fying thing, and it was not until his spirit was broken and his moral and
physical constitution undermined by trade, conquest, and strong drink,
that Christian missionaries obtained any real hold upon him. Strange as
it may seem, it is true that the proud pagan in his secret soul despised
the good men who came to convert and to enlighten him!
Nor were its publicity and its Phariseeism the only elements in the
alien religion that offended the red man. To him, it appeared shocking
and almost incredible that there were among this people who claimed
superiority many irreligious, who did not even pretend to profess the
national faith. Not only did they not profess it, but they stooped so low
as to insult their God with profane and sacrilegious speech! In our own
tongue His name was not spoken aloud, even with utmost reverence,
much less lightly or irreverently.
More than this, even in those white men who professed religion we
found much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual
things, while seeking only the material. They bought and sold every¬
thing: time, labor, personal independence, the love of woman, and even
the ministrations of their holy faith! The lust for money, power, and con¬
quest so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race did "not escape moral
condemnation at the hands of his untutored judge, nor did he fail to
contrast this conspicuous trait of the dominant race with the spirit of the
meek and lowly Jesus.
He might in time come to recognize that the drunkards and licen¬
tious among white men, with whom he too frequently came in contact,
were condemned by the white man's religion as well, and must not be
held to discredit it. But it was not so easy to overlook or to excuse na¬
tional bad faith. When distinguished emissaries from the Father at
Washington, some of them ministers of the gospel and even bishops,
came to the Indian nations, and pledged to them in solemn treaty the
national honor, with prayer and mention of their God; and when such
treaties, so made, were promptly and shamelessly broken, is it strange
that the action should arouse not only anger, but contempt? The histo¬
rians of the white race admit that the Indian was never the first to re¬
pudiate his oath.
It is my personal belief, after thirty-five years' experience of it, that
there is no such thing as "Christian civilization." I believe that Chris¬
tianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that
the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is essentially the
same.
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 263

from Women's Reality: An Emerging Female System

in a White Male Society
by Anne Wilson Schaef

Let me explain what I mean by the White Male System. It is the system
in which we live, and in it, the power and influence are held by white
males. This system did not happen overnight, nor was it the result of the
machinations of only a few individuals; we all not only let it occur but
participated in its development. Nevertheless, the White Male System
is just that: a system. We all live in it, but it is not reality. It is not the way
the world is. Unfortunately, some of us do not recognize that it is a sys¬
tem and think it is reality or the way the world is.
The White Male System—and it is important to keep in mind that I
am referring to a system here and not pointing a finger at specific indi¬
viduals within it—controls almost every aspect of our culture. It makes
our laws, runs our economy, sets our salaries, and decides when and if
we will go to war or remain at home. It decides what is knowledge and
how it is to be taught. Like any other system, it has both positive and
negative qualities. But because it is only a system, it can be clarified, ex¬
amined, and changed, both from within and without.
There are other systems within our culture. The Black System, the
Chicano System, the Asian-American System, and the Native American
System are completely enveloped in and frequently overshadowed by
the White Male System. As, of course, is the Female System, which in¬
cludes women from the other ethnic systems as well as white women.
There are a few white men who do not fit into the White Male Sys¬
tem. They form a small but growing group which is frequently per¬
ceived as a sanctuary by white men who do not want to acknowledge
their sexism. Whenever I mention the existence of this group during a
lecture, I can almost see the men in the room rushing to crowd into it. If
they can just get into that circle, they can be ''different" and not have to
face themselves. I wait until they are comfortably crowded in before
saying, "Of course, at this point in history that group is largely homo¬
sexual." They then quickly rush right out again! I use this statement for
effect, and while it is not necessarily accurate, it does encourage men to
realize that there is more to sexism than meets the eye. This keeps the
focus where it should be and is also an amusing process to observe.
Saying that you are not sexist—or that you do not want to be, or
would rather not admit that you are—is not the same as doing some¬
thing about your sexism. To give a parallel example, this is much like
what many of us white liberals did during the civil rights movement.
We needed our Black friends to tell us that we were different. We
needed to hear that we were not like everyone else, that we were not
discriminatory and racist. Once we heard that, we could avoid having
264 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

to deal with our racism, which was real no matter how hard we tried to
ignore it or cover it up.
I had two Black colleagues who simply refused to tell me what I
wanted to hear. I finally learned that the issue was not one of whether I
was racist, but of how I was racist. As soon as I was able to acknowledge
this—with my friends' help—then and only then could I begin to work
on my own racist attitudes and behaviors. Similarly, because we all live
in a white male culture, the question is not one of whether we are sexist,
but of how we are sexist. (This is true for women as well as men, by the
way.)
Before we can deal with our sexism, we must learn to distance our¬
selves from the White Male System. We must learn to step back, take a
long look at it, and see it for what it really is.

Clearing the Air: Pollution vs. Non-Pollution

I like to think of the White Male System as analogous to pollution.

When you are in the middle of pollution, you are usually unaware of it
(unless it is especially bad). You eat in it, sleep in it, work in it, and
sooner or later start believing that that is just the way the air is. You are
unaware of the fact that pollution is not natural until you remove your¬
self from it and experience non-pollution.
I live in the Colorado mountains where the air is very clear. When¬
ever I go to the East Coast, I almost immediately start coughing and
fighting a postnasal drip. As 1 choke and sputter, I comment to local res¬
idents, "My, the pollution is bad today!" They in turn look startled and
ask, "What pollution?" What they are really saying, of course, is this:
"Isn't the air always a little thick and yellowish-gray?"
io When flying into New York—or Los Angeles, for that matter—it is
easy enough to look down and say, "Now, that's pollution!" Once you
are in it for a while, though, you simply forget all about it and accept
polluted air as a given.
Native Americans have always recognized the White Male System as
pollution. The Blacks were the next group to challenge the system. The
Blacks went off by themselves and said, "We have a system of our
own—the Black system. It isn't always right, but it isn't always wrong.
Black is beautiful and our system is just fine." Until then, very few
groups had stepped away from the White Male System, reflected on it,
and declared their own alternatives.
It is very difficult to stand back from the White Male System because
it is everywhere in our culture. You can get away from pollution by
leaving New York City and going to the mountains, but you can not get
away from the White Male System as easily as that. It is our culture. We
all live in it. We have been educationally, politically, economically,
philosophically, and theologically trained in it, and our emotional.
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 265

psychological, physical, and spiritual survival have depended on our

knowing and supporting the system. White women believe that they
get their identity externally from the White Male System and that the
White Male System is necessary to validate that identity. Therefore,
challenging the system becomes almost impossible.
There is a direct correlation between buying into the White Male Sys¬
tem and surviving in our culture. Since white women have bought into
the system the most, they have survived better than other groups both
economically and physically although they do get battered and raped
and mutilated (for example, through unnecessary surgery). They have
had to hide and/or unlearn their own system and accept the stereo¬
types that the White Male System has set up for them.
Blacks have accepted the White Male System less wholeheartedly
than white women and have not done as well within it. (Of course,
white men have not exactly been enthusiastic about welcoming Blacks
into their system.) Chicanos and Asian Americans are even further re¬
moved. Finally, most Native Americans have generally refused to have
anything at all to do with it. When one looks at how Native Americans
have fared within this culture, one sees graphic evidence of what hap¬
pens to those who try to escape or ignore the White Male System. They
are either exterminated outright or have to fight every step of the way.
Economic and physical survival have been directly related to accepting
and incorporating the White Male System.
There is also an inverse relationship between accepting and incorpo¬
rating the White Male System and personal survival. The stress of hav¬
ing to be innately superior at all times is more than the human organism
can tolerate. Those persons who buy into the system the most and work
the hardest to become shining examples of what it means tend to drop
dead ahead of their time from heart attacks, strokes, high blood pres¬
sure, ulcers, and other physical after effects of unrelenting tension and
stress.
One unforeseen consequence of the civil rights movement is that
more Black males are dying of heart attacks these days. As they move
into the White Male System and become part of it, they inherit the un¬
fortunate legacy of stress and early death. The same appears to be true
for women who are "making it" in the White Male System. It seems as
if high blood pressure goes hand in hand with three-piece suits and at¬
tache cases.
This does not have to be so, however. One big problem with the
White Male System is that stress is assumed to be an integral part of the
system. If one tries to live up to the myths of the system, then one nat¬
urally undergoes a great deal of strain. One can choose not to live up to
these myths. One can choose to remove the causes of stress rather than
merely learning how to cope with them. The only really effective way
to go about doing this is to challenge the myths of the White Male
 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

System and eventually to change the system itself. It can be done; in

some cases, it is already being done.
I am not talking here about women's liberation, or Black liberation,
or the liberation of any other single group within our culture. Instead, I
am looking forward to a time when we can all become the persons we
really are. Blacks and women are learning to tell the difference between
pollution and non-pollution. They are showing us that it is possible to
stand back and say, "The White Male System is only a system. It is not
reality. It is not the way the world is." Blacks have defined their own
system, and some of them have tried to communicate this to the rest of
us. Unfortunately, many of us have been very slow learners. It is diffi¬
cult to teach a new concept to someone who already "knows it all" (one
of the myths of the White Male System). Some Blacks have not bothered
trying to tell others about their system. They have just focused on get¬
ting into the White Male System because they know they must in order
to survive.
1 have described the White Male System as it is perceived by Female
System women. Similarly, there is a Female System. It is not good or
bad. It just is. It is not necessary to choose one system over the other. As
the Female System is described, we will see and understand another
system. The more systems we know about, the more choices we have.
Over time, perhaps, more new—and better—systems, models, and al¬
ternatives will emerge.

Sometimes a powerful part of a culture decides that it is time to change

perspectives and proceeds to do so. An example is a tremendous change that
has taken place in American history textbooks. Anyone who went to school
in the 1950s or before may be surprised to hear what current textbooks are
like. If you went to school in the 1960s or later, you may be surprised to hear
what they used to be like!

from America Revised

by Frances FitzGerald

Those of us who grew up in the fifties believed in the permanence of our

American-history textbooks. To us as children, those texts were the
truth of things: they were American history. It was not just that we read
them before we understood that not everything that is printed is the
truth, or the whole truth. It was that they, much more than other books,
had the demeanor and trappings of authority. They were weighty vol¬
umes. They spoke in measured cadences: imperturbable, humorless,
and as distant as Chinese emperors. Our teachers treated them with re¬
spect, and we paid them abject homage by memorizing a chapter a
 Thinking Critically About Perceptions 267

week. But now the textbook histories have changed, some of them to
such an extent that an adult would find them unrecognizable.
One current junior-high-school American history begins with a story
about a Negro cowboy called George Mcjunkin. It appears that when
Mcjunkin was riding down a lonely trail in New Mexico one cold
spring morning in 1925 he discovered a mound containing bones and
stone implements, which scientists later proved belonged to an Indian
civilization ten thousand years old. The book goes on to say that scien¬
tists now believe there were people in the Americas at least twenty
thousand years ago. It discusses the Aztec, Mayan, and Incan civiliza¬
tions and the meaning of the word "culture" before introducing the Eu¬
ropean explorers.
Another history text—this one for the fifth grade—begins with the
story of how Henry B. Gonzalez, who is a member of Congress from
Texas, learned about his own nationality. When he was ten years old, his
teacher told him he was an American because he was born in the United
States. His grandmother, however, said, "The cat was born in the oven.
Does that make him bread?" After reporting that Mr. Gonzalez eventu¬
ally went to college and law school, the book explains that "the melting
pot idea hasn't worked out as some thought it would," and that now
"some people say that the people of the United States are more like a
salad bowl than a melting pot."
Poor Columbus! He is a minor character now, a walk-on in the mid¬
dle of American history. Even those books that have not replaced his
picture with a Mayan temple or an Iroquois mask do not credit him
with discovering America—even for the Europeans. The Vikings, they
say, preceded him to the New World, and after that the Europeans, hav¬
ing lost or forgotten their maps, simply neglected to cross the ocean
again for five hundred years. Columbus is far from being the only per¬
sonage to have suffered from time and revision. Captain John Smith,
Daniel Boone, and Wild Bill Hickok—the great self-promoters of Amer¬
ican history—have all but disappeared, taking with them a good deal of
the romance of the American frontier. General Custer has given way to
Chief Crazy Horse; General Eisenhower no longer liberates Europe sin¬
gle-handed; and, indeed, most generals, even to Washington and Lee,
have faded away, as old soldiers do, giving place to social reformers
such as William Lloyd Garrison and Jacob Riis. A number of black
Americans have risen to prominence: not only George Washington
Carver but Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. W. E. B. Du
Bois now invariably accompanies Booker T. Washington. In addition,
there is a mystery man called Crispus Attucks, a fugitive slave about
whom nothing seems to be known for certain except that he was a vic¬
tim of the Boston Massacre and thus became one of the first casualties
of the American Revolution. Thaddeus Stevens has been recon¬
structed—his character changed, as it were, from black to white, from
Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

cruel and vindictive to persistent and sincere. As for Teddy Roosevelt,

he now champions the issue of conservation instead of charging up San
Juan Hill. No single President really stands out as a hero, but all Presi¬
dents—except certain unmentionables in the second half of the nine¬
teenth century—seem to have done as well as could be expected, given
difficult circumstances.
Of course, when one thinks about it, it is hardly surprising that mod¬
em scholarship and modern perspectives have found their way into
children's books. Yet the changes remain shocking. Those who in the
sixties complained of the bland optimism, the chauvinism, and the ma¬
terialism of their old civics texts did so in the belief that, for all their
protests, the texts would never change. The thought must have had
something reassuring about it, for that generation never noticed when
its complaints began to take effect and the songs about radioactive rain¬
fall and houses made of ticky-tacky began to appear in the textbooks.
But this is what happened.
The history texts now hint at a certain level of unpleasantness in
American history. Several books, for instance, tell the story of Ishi,
the last "wild" Indian in the continental United States, who, captured
in 1911 after the massacre of his tribe, spent the final four and a half
years of his life in the University of California's museum of anthro¬
pology, in San Francisco. At least three books show the same stunning
picture of the breaker boys, the child coal miners of Pennsylvania—
ancient children with deformed bodies and blackened faces who stare
stupidly out from the entrance to a mine. One book quotes a soldier on
the use of torture in the American campaign to pacify the Philippines at
the beginning of the century. A number of books say that during the
American Revolution the patriots tarred and feathered those who did
not support them, and drove many of the loyalists from the country. Al¬
most all the present-day history books note that the United States in¬
terned Japanese-Americans in detention camps during the Second
World War.
Ideologically speaking, the histories of the fifties were implacable,
seamless. Inside their covers, America was perfect: the greatest nation
in the world, and the embodiment of democracy, freedom, and techno¬
logical progress. For them, the country never changed in any important
way: its values and its political institutions remained constant from the
time of the American Revolution. To my generation—the children of the
fifties—these texts appeared permanent just because they were so self-
contained. Their orthodoxy, it seemed, left no handholds for attack, no
lodging for decay. Who, after all, would dispute the wonders of tech¬
nology or the superiority of the English colonists over the Spanish?
Who would find fault with the pastorale of the West or the Old South?
Who would question the anti-Communist crusade? There was, it
seemed, no point in comparing these visions with reality, since they
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perspectives 269

were the public truth and were thus quite irrelevant to what existed and
to what anyone privately believed. They were—or so it seemed—the
permanent expression of mass culture in America.
But now the texts have changed, and with them the country that
American children are growing up into. The society that was once uni¬
form is now a patchwork of rich and poor, old and young, men and
women, blacks, whites, Hispardcs, and Indians. The system that ran so
smoothly by means of the Constitution under the guidance of benevo¬
lent conductor Presidents is now a rattletrap affair. The past is no high¬
way to the present; it is a collection of issues and events that do not fit
together and that lead in no single direction. The word "progress" has
been replaced by the word "change": children, the modern texts insist,
should learn history so that they can adapt to the rapid changes taking
place around them. History is proceeding in spite of us. The present,
which was once portrayed in the concluding chapters as a peaceful
haven of scientific advances and Presidential inaugurations, is now a
tangle of problems: race problems, urban problems, foreign-policy
problems, problems of pollution, poverty, energy depletion, youthful
rebellion, assassination, and drugs. Some books illustrate these prob¬
lems dramatically. One, for instance, contains a picture of a doll half
buried in a mass of untreated sewage; the caption reads, "Are we in
danger of being overwhelmed by the products of our society and
wastage created by their production? Would you agree with this pho¬
tographer's interpretation?" Two books show the same picture of an old
black woman sitting in a straight chair in a dingy room, her hands
folded in graceful resignation; the surrounding text discussed the prob¬
lems faced by the urban poor and by the aged who depend on Social Se¬
curity. ...

Writing Thoughtfully About Perspectives

Whenever we place two or more perspectives, or two or more other things,
together and examine them for likenesses and differences, we are engaging
in the powerful thinking pattern called comparison and contrast. To be pre¬
cise, when we compare, we are focusing on similarities or areas of agreement;
when we contrast, we are focusing on differences or areas of disagreement.
Generally, the items examined are from the same category, such as two per¬
spectives. We will discuss writing about items from the same category in the
following section. Comparative Relationships. Sometimes, in order to make
a point or explain something we cannot explain otherwise, we compare items
from different categories. We will discuss these unusual comparisons in the
next section, Analogical Relationships (pp. 272-274).
270 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

Comparative Relationships
We use comparison and contrast informally in our daily lives to help our¬
selves make decisions about what to buy or which TV programs to watch—
or to note, for instance, how much one of our relatives does or doesn't
resemble another. When we use comparison and contrast in a formal way, by
following certain established principles, we are using it to think critically
toward a significant conclusion. That is, we use it not just to list areas of sim¬
ilarity or difference, but for help with achieving clearer understanding or
new insight. When we use comparison and contrast to examine different per¬
spectives, we do so in order to understand each perspective, to see if one is
superior to the other, to see if we ourselves have yet another perspective, and
so on.
The principles for using comparison and contrast to think critically are
not difficult to understand or remember:

1. Compare or contrast two or more things with something essential in common; that
is, from the same category. Thus, it makes sense to compare two accounts of
the same event or two essays on affirmative action. ('This principle is vio¬
lated, for good reason, when we use analogical relationships.)
2. Establish important bases or points for comparison and contrast. In everyday
situations, it is fairly easy to determine which points are important. In de¬
ciding between two cars, the important points may be price, model, and
safety features; exterior color or exact trunk capacity may not be impor¬
tant. But when you are working with written texts, finding points for com¬
parison and contrast and deciding which of them are important require
careful thought. In comparing or contrasting two accounts of the same
event, important points might include the actual presence of the writers
at the event or the writers' reliance on the accounts of others; the language
the writers use to describe the participants or actions; and which details
the writers have included or omitted. The gender of a writer or the length
of an account might or might not be significant.
3. Develop or locate relevant, specific evidence for each point. True, you are enti¬
tled to your opinion. However, opinions valued by critical thinkers are
those supported by evidence. In everyday situations, the evidence usually
means facts: the prices of two different cars, the presence or absence of air
bags, and so on. With written texts, the evidence comes from the texts
themselves, in the form of either accurate paraphrases or direct quota¬
tions.
4. Determine the significance of the comparison and contrast: What can be learned
from it? What should be done as a result? In everyday situations, this sig¬
nificance is often a determination that this car is superior to that one and
is therefore the one to purchase. When you are working with written texts,
the significance may be that the texts disagree on important points, and"
therefore, at least one is more persuasive than the other; or that one or both
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perspectives 271

texts are biased; or that an important truth has emerged from the compar¬
ison and contrast, and so forth.

When we are ready to present the results of our critical thinking in writing
for others to read and consider, we need to become concerned about present¬
ing our thinking in such a way that readers will be able to follow it and, we
hope, agree with its conclusion. Therefore, for writing, we need to add these
principles:

5. Early and accurately, introduce the things to be compared and contrasted. When
you work with written texts, this means identifying what the texts are
(personal essays, poems, newspaper accounts, excerpts from books, etc.)
and naming the titles and authors early, probably in the introductory para¬
graph.
6. Develop a thesis which indicates that likenesses and/or differences will be exam¬
ined. Because two or more things are being discussed and points about
each will be introduced, the audience will be confronting a difficult read¬
ing task. A clear statement of what is to come can offer that audience a
framework to follow.
7. Organize the comparison and contrast in the way that will be easiest for the audi¬
ence to follow. Basically, there are three ways to organize a comparison and
contrast: block, point-by-point, and some combination of block and point-
by-point. Block means that after the introduction, all the material about the
first subject is presented; then, all the material about the second. The se¬
lection from Mark Twain on pages 240-241 of this chapter uses block or¬
ganization. Point-by-point means that for each key point or basis of
comparison, information is given first about one of the things being com¬
pared and contrasted, then about the other. Thus, the writer moves back
and forth between the two things being compared and contrasted. The
selection by Benjamin Franklin on pages 254-258 of this chapter uses
point-by-point organization. A combination of these two organizational
patterns is sometimes used, as when there are a few points of similarity
that can easily be dealt with in block, followed by several points of differ¬
ence that the writer wishes to address one at a time.
8. Bring up the same bases or points of comparison or contrast for each subject, and
in the same order. An incomplete comparison results when, for instance, the
language used in one text is addressed but the language used in another
text is not discussed. If an important point appears in one text but not in
the other, it is reasonable to simply tell the audience this. For example, "No
mention is made of a doctor in this account."
9. Assist the audience by using transitional words, phrases, or sentences to show re¬
lationships and shifts. Logical connections that exist in the writer's head are
not necessarily apparent to the audience, but they can be made visible by
the use of appropriate transitions.
10. State the significance of your comparison and contrast at the place in the es¬
say where it will be most effective. Sometimes writers use the significance
272 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

as the opening lead, sometimes they incorporate it into the thesis state¬
ment, and sometimes they save it for the conclusion. In deciding where
to place it, ask yourself where it will have the greatest impact on the
audience.

Analogical Relationships
We noted earlier that comparative relationships involve examining the simi¬
larities and differences of two items in the same general category, such as two
perspectives or two items on a menu or two methods of birth control. There
is another kind of comparison, however, one that does not focus on things in
the same category. Such comparisons are known as analogies, and their goal
is to clarify or illuminate a concept from one category by saying that in some
ways, it is the same as a concept from a very different category.
The purpose of an analogy is not the same as the purpose of the compar¬
ison considered in the last section. There, we noted that the goal of compar¬
ing similar tilings is usually to make a choice and that the process of
comparing can provide us with information on which we can base an intelli¬
gent decision. The main goal of analogies, however, is not to choose or de¬
cide, it is to illuminate our understanding. Identifying similarities between
very different things can often stimulate us to see these things in a new light,
from a fresh perspective.

Analogy: a comparison between things that are basically

dissimilar, made for the purpose of illuminating our
understanding of the things being compared.

We ourselves often create and use analogies to put a point across. Used
appropriately, analogies can help to illustrate what we are trying to commu¬
nicate. This is particularly useful when we have difficulty in finding the right
words to represent our experiences. Similes and metaphors, two figures of
speech based on analogy that help us to "say things for which we have not
words," are discussed on pages 167-170 of Chapter 5 of this book.
In addition to communicating experiences that resist simple characteri¬
zation, analogies are useful when a writer is explaining a complicated con¬
cept. For instance, you might compare the eye to a camera lens, or the
immunological system of the body to the National Guard (corpuscles are
called to active duty and rush to the scene of danger when undesirable ele¬
ments threaten the well-being of the organism).
Analogies are often used to describe shape or size. Thus, even those of us
who don t know what an S-hook or an I-beam are can envision their shapes
because of our familiarity with the shapes of letters. In the same way, it helps
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perspectives 273

Analogical thinking and writing patterns clarify or illuminate a concept from

one category by relating it to a concept from a very different category.

our readers to understand size if we describe an object as "about the size of a

dollar bill" or a piece of property as "roughly the size of two football fields."
Analogies enliven human discourse by evoking images that illuminate
the points of comparison. Consider the following analogies and explain the
points of comparison.

"Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and
hornets break through."—Jonathan Swift
"I am as pure as the driven slush."—Tallulah Bankhead
"He has all the qualities of a dog, except its devotion."—Gore Vidal

A word of caution about analogies is in order here. Since they are based
on items from different categories and have only limited points of similarity,
be very careful when writing or reading arguments based on analogies. The
failed United States policy in Vietnam was based on the "domino theory,"
which held that since the countries in Southeast Asia had common borders,
if one country became Communist the other countries would also "fall" to
Communism, just as a row of dominoes would all fall if one were knocked
down. However, the countries were separate entities, places with people,
history, cultures, and policies of their own. They were not small game pieces
like dominoes, and the theory proved false. Analogies do have value for
Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

describing and explaining, but by their very nature they have a limited value
in argument.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 7.5

Extended Analogies
Read the following passage, which uses an analogical pattern of thinking. Iden¬
tify the major ideas being compared and describe their points of similarity. Ex¬
plain how the analogy helps illuminate the subject being discussed.

The mountain guide, like the true teacher, has a quiet authority. He or
she engenders trust and confidence so that one is willing to join the en¬
deavor. The guide accepts his leadership role, yet recognizes that suc¬
cess (measured by the heights that are scaled) depends upon the close
cooperation and active participation of each member of the group. He
has crossed the terrain before and is familiar with the landmarks, but
each trip is new and generates its own anxiety and excitement. Essen¬
tial skills must be mastered; if they are lacking, disaster looms. The situ¬
ation demands keen focus and rapt attention; slackness, misjudgment,
or laziness can abort the venture. The teacher is not a pleader, not a per¬
former, not a huckster, but a confident, exuberant guide on expeditions
of shared responsibility into the most exciting and least-understood ter¬
rain on earth—the mind itself. —Nancy K. Hill, Scaling the Heights: The
Teacher as Mountaineer
 Writing Thoughtfully About Perspectives 275

WRITING PROJECT

This chapter has included both readings and Thinking^Writing Activities

that encouraged you to reflect on the nature of perception and on comparing
and contrasting different perspectives. Be sure to reread what you wrote for
those activities; you may be able to use it for help in completing this project.

WRITING PROJECT Critically Evaluating Different Perspectives

on an Issue or Event
Write an essay comparins and contrastins two or more written texts
that present different perspectives. Your goal is to arrive at a signif¬
icant insight about the texts. After you have drafted the essay, revise
it to the best of your ability. Follow instructions given by your pro¬
fessor as to which texts to choose, the length and format of the es¬
say, and so forth.

Begin by considering the key elements in the Thinking-^Writing Model

on page 8.

Purpose
You are being asked to demonstrate your ability to think and write critically
while applying the principles for using comparison and contrast. The essay¬
writing assignment includes establishing the significance of your compari¬
son and contrast. You will be developing your critical thinking skills by
comparing and contrasting in a formal way and by discovering what you can
learn about the texts you choose. Finally, you will be sharing your insights
about the texts with your audience.

Audience
Although your introduction may include a very brief summary of the texts,
your audience is not interested in everything the texts include, but rather
in your analysis of the areas of likeness and difference in the texts. Therefore,
you may prefer not to mention some large areas of the texts at all, if they are
not relevant to the points you wish to discuss. However, you will need to in¬
clude enough evidence from the texts about those points to help your audi¬
ence to understand and agree with your conclusions. Remember that you
should not merely tell your audience that a likeness or difference exists; you
must show the evidence of that likeness or difference, so that the audience can
"see" it for themselves.
Your classmates can be valuable peer reviewers of a draft, reacting as in¬
telligent readers who are able to comment on the logic and clarity of your
writing. Ultimately, your professor remains the audience who will judge how
well you have applied the principles in this chapter and how well you have
276 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

planned, drafted, and revised. As a writing teacher, he or she cares about a

clear focus, logical organization, specific details and examples, and correct¬
ness. Keep these in mind as you revise, edit, and proofread.

Subject
If your professor specifies which texts you should compare and contrast, con¬
sider why he or she may have chosen them. Another question to ask yourself
is what those texts have in common. If your professor has left the choice to
you, remember that you must use texts that do have something essential in
common. It helps a great deal to pick texts that genuinely interest you, either
because of their subject matter or because of their style. Or you may decide
to pick an issue or event that interests you and use your research skills to lo¬
cate texts about that issue or event. In that case, it may be necessary to pro¬
vide copies of the texts for your audience.

Writer
This project asks you to bring your critical reading and thinking to other
writers' works and to analyze their perspectives. Your position of authority
and your comfort level may well depend on how much you know about the
subject of the pieces that you are analyzing. However, neither your personal
opinions nor your experiences are the focus in this project. You must be as ob¬
jective as possible as you write and as thoughtful as possible as you establish
the significance of your analysis.

The Writing Process

The following sections will guide you through the stages of generating, plan-
ning, drafting, and revising as you work on your essay. Try to be particularly
conscious of applying the principles discussed in this chapter, and of the crit¬
ical thinking you do when you revise.

Generating Ideas

Once you have decided which texts you will work on, reread each of them
several times. Likenesses and differences may not be immediately apparent,
nor may any significance strike you at the start. Some preliminary writine
may help. 6

■ Make a list of the ideas in each text.

■ Make a list of what you notice about each text. Are you struck by the
opening, the choice of words, the author's bias or objectivity, the
presence or absence of specific details, or any other elements or charac¬
teristics?
 The Writing Process T71

■ After you have made these lists, begin to look for bases or points of
likeness or difference. This requires abstract thinking on your part, but
patience yields results.
■ Collaboration can be productive. Talk with others about the texts.
■ Read the student papers at the end of this chapter. They may help you
to see what needs to be done.
■ Read carefully any other models your professor provides.
■ Try five minutes of freewriting on what the texts have in common, then
five minutes on how they differ.
■ Once you have some bases for comparison or contrast, go back to the
texts themselves and look for passages you could quote to illustrate
your ideas.
■ If you own the book or books in which the texts appear, use a highlight¬
ing pen to mark areas you may wish to quote. If you don't own the
book, copy the quotations or make photocopies of the entire text and
use highlighting.
■ Now begin to think about significance. What are you beginning to see
about the texts? What are you beginning to feel about them?
■ Try freewriting for five minutes on any or all of these questions:
Does one text do a better job than the other? If so, in what way or ways?
Do you agree with either or both texts? If not, what is your perspective?
Do either or both texts cause you to re-evaluate or change your own
ideas or perspectives?

Defining a Focus
Write a thesis statement that will clearly inform your audience that you are
going to explore likenesses, differences, or both. You might decide to write
something like "After studying both these accounts carefully, I saw two dis¬
tinct differences." Or you might decide to name the areas of likeness or dif¬
ference: "The authors are alike in their recognition of the need for more
education and their determination in pursuing that education." You may
even decide to announce your significance in your thesis statement: "Seeing
the biased way in which one of the texts presented this event made me wary
of accepting any printed material at face value."

Organizing Ideas
This assignment fits well with what you have already learned about essay
structure, but requires you to move a few steps beyond what you have ac¬
complished previously. Your description of the issue or event and of the texts
that describe it will give you a "working" introduction that will end with
278 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

your thesis statement. The actual discussion of likenesses and/or differences

will take place in the body paragraphs, and the significance of your analysis
can be introduced or enlarged upon in the conclusion. The major decision
you will have to make is whether to use block or point-by-point organization,
or some combination of the two.

Drafting
Begin with the easiest paragraph to draft. If you are using point-by-point, re¬
member to begin each body paragraph with a topic sentence indicating that
this point will be discussed for both (or all) texts: for example, "Both accounts
agree on the cause of the contamination." Then provide the audience with as
much information as is needed to help them see what you mean. Use the quo¬
tations you highlighted to support your points and let the audience see that
the texts really do say very similar~or very different—things. You will, of
course, have to decide on the most logical order for the body paragraphs:
which point to present first, which second, and so on.
Generally, readers have an easier time with point-by-point organization,
but some writing situations call for block. Fortunately, word processors make
it easy to move sentences around, so try it both ways to see which will be eas¬
ier for your audience to follow.
In your conclusion, name or enlarge on the significance of your analysis,
but be careful not to make too broad a statement. Consideration of two or
three texts does not prove, for instance, that all texts are racist or sexist, but
discovering racism or sexism in some texts should encourage you and your
readers to be aware that these characteristics may be present in others.

Revising
Ideally, at this point, you should put your draft aside for a day or two. If
deadlines won't permit you to do that, then at least take a break before you
try to revise. When you are ready to "re-see" your writing, begin by reading
it through slowly, preferably aloud. If possible, have someone whose opinion
you respect read it; ask for feedback. Then work through the hierarchy of re¬
vision concerns that follows. Remember that you have at least one and pos¬
sibly two decisions to make for each question: (1) Is improvement needed?
and (2) If improvement is needed, how, exactly, can I make my draft better?
1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.
■ Does it fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ Is the organization logical?
■ Do you provide enough evidence?
■ Is your point of view consistent?
■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs?
 The Writing Process 279

■ Have you documented information from your sources accurately?

■ Have you used quotation marks with direct quotes or set them off by in¬
denting them?
2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.
■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
■ Is the introduction appropriate for the rest of the draft?
■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a "visible" structure?
■ If you are working with an "invisible" structure, is your focus clearly im¬
plied?
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
■ Does each body paragraph develop a different idea?
■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Is your conclusion effective?
3. Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.
■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
■ Are sentences with blended quotations (that is, quotations that are inte¬
grated into the syntax of the sentence instead of introduced with "He
said ..." or "She said ...") complete and easy to read?
■ Are quotations shortened with ellipsis marks accurate and readable?
■ Are there several choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Are any sentences vague?
■ Do any sentences need to be corrected for standard English grammar and
usage?
4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.
■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are any words misspelled?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
■ Does your paper make a good impression by being used?
■ Is there anything else you could do to improve your draft?

Proofreading
After you prepare a final draft, check again for correct grammar and punctu¬
ation. Proofread carefully for omitted words or punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread carefully
for the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.

Student Essay
The following essays show how students responded to this assignment. The
first is organized by block, and the second by point-by-point.
280 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

STUDENT WRITING
Different Perspectives
by Jesse Chen

I can never forget what happened to my people at Tiananmen Square

in Beijing, China, on the morning of June 4, 1989. My parents and I
stayed up all night in our home in Hong Kong watching the news on
television. It was broadcasting the quelling of the demonstrators in
Tiananmen Square, and it was abhorrent and unbelievable. The Chi¬
nese Army entered Tiananmen Square and shot the students who were
protesting for the pro-democracy movement. It came to a bloody end
in that many innocent students were killed on that blood red morning.
I remember that my parents were both crying when they saw their
own people being killed by the "People’s Army." When I read the ac¬
counts in my textbook from The New York Times (June 4, 1989) and
the Official Chinese Government Accounts which include quotations
from six Chinese persons, I found it incredible that they turned out to
be two completely different stories even though they were about the
same event. The New York Times tends to focus on reporting the facts
of the slaughter while the Official Chinese Government Accounts tend
to glorify the People’s Liberation Army and the sacrifices made by its
members. Because of different backgrounds and perspectives, The
New York Times and the Official Chinese Government Accounts have
come to two different stories about the slaughter; therefore, we need
to think critically and analyze carefully before we can recognize a reli¬
able source.
As a public medium, The New York Times plays a neutral role
which only reports the fact of the slaughter without adding any biased
opinion. It describes the students as "students,* a factual title. More¬
over, when describing the scene of the slaughter, it reports that the
troops "fired submachine guns at the crowd of people who tried to
resist. It states, Troops marched along the roads surrounding central
Tiananmen Square, sometimes firing in the air and sometimes firing di¬
rectly at crowds who refused to move." It reports, "Most of the dead
had been shot, but some had been run over by personnel carriers that
forced their way through the protestors' barricades." Those descrip¬
tions of the scene are very close to the news which I saw and heard
broadcast on TV, so the reliability is high. Moreover, in reporting the
death toll, The Times does not give a very accurate number because it
is impossible to be estimated or proved. Therefore, it merely gives a
sketchy death toll: "Students said, however, that at least 500 people
may have been killed in the crackdown." Furthermore, The Times does
not render a judgment; it neither praises nor criticizes one side or the
other since its responsibility is to report the facts only.
 Student Writing 281

On the contrary, the Official Chinese Government Accounts give a

different report, mainly glorifying the People’s Liberation Army and
sympathizing with the sacrifices made by its soldiers. Unlike The
Times, these accounts do not name the students as "students." Han
Xu, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, criticized them as "a
mob led by a small number of people" who were trying to prevent
"the normal conduct of the affairs of state." Also, General Lie Zgiyun
said, "It never happened that soldiers fired directly at the people."
Moreover, the Official Accounts even deny the death of the students:
"Not a single student was killed at Tiananmen Square,” said a Chinese
army commander. However, the Official Chinese news program re¬
ported, "More than 1,000 police officers and troops were injured and
killed, and some civilians were killed." Yuan Mu, an official govern¬
ment spokesman, said, "At most 300 people were killed in the opera¬
tion, many of them soldiers.” Finally, Prime Minister Li Peng offered his
appreciation to the army: "Comrades, thanks for your hard work. We
hope you will continue your fine efforts to safeguard security in the
capital."
In conclusion, people’s perspectives vary according to their back¬
grounds and status. Because of the differences in the backgrounds
and status, The Times and the Chinese Government came to two op¬
posed stories. We can measure their reliability by analyzing their
backgrounds and status. Being a public medium, The Times tends to
be neutral, not biased toward either side. However, in order to evade
responsibility and cover up the faults, the Official Chinese Govern¬
ment Accounts tend to by-pass the sacrifices of the students and glo¬
rify the "hard work" of the army. Even until now, the Chinese
Government still denies that they killed any students. Therefore, be¬
fore we can trust or believe a source, we need to think critically about
its perspective before we accept its reliability.

STUDENT WRITING
The Tiananmen Square Event:
An Analysis of Several Different Accounts
by Rissa Miller

To depict an event truthfully is a task reporters hold sacred in this

country, but to report a story free of bias and perception is almost an
impossibility. As Americans we accept this and realize as long as un¬
covering truth is the ultimate goal, sifting through bias is up to the
reader. However, through bias a story may take a politically or person¬
ally motivated angle, and without several different views, there is no
way for a reader to decipher this perception. This is seen in seven ac¬
counts given in our textbook of the Tiananmen Square event.
 Chapter 7 Exploring Comparative Relationships—Writing About Perspectives

In an eye-witness account published in The New York Times on

June 4, 1989, the opening scene was set on a main road in Beijins
which . . echoed with screams ... as young people carried the
bodies of their friends . . . sobbing. . . ." The depiction of violence
was detailed, and took up over half the article. The students were said
to be fighting with iron pipes, stones, and other crude and ineffective
objects against the army’s more advanced weapons. "Many of those
killed were throwing bricks at the soldiers . . . students and workers
ran alongside the personnel carriers, hurling concrete blocks and
wooden staves into the treads. . . ." Any description of action taken
by the People's Liberation Army was entirely left out. The best sense
the reader gets of it is from a student who says, "Nothing can show
more clearly that it does not represent the people." The students’ po¬
litical stand was described as a "democracy movement" and an "
uprising."
Another article in The New York Times, published on June 5, 1989,
focused on the number of student deaths. It began, \ . . 300 people #
had been killed since the troops first opened fire. . . ." The report
continued to state that, through word of mouth, estimates were be¬
tween 2,000 and 2,600 casualties. Also, its only depictions of soldiers
were of beating and bayoneting students, workers, and young
women, ". . . after daybreak . . . sometimes entirely at random." This
article is absent of any explanation of the political motivation on the
students' part or that of the army. The language used was extremely
neutral. "The student organization" was how the protesters were
named, as opposed to calling them "rebels" or "democrats."
According to Deng Xiaoping as reported in the Bejing Review, the
protesters were ". . . bad people mixed with students and
onlookers ... a rebellious clique and the dregs of society." They were
not described as part of a movement or uprising but as wanting to
"overthrow our state. . . ." Their stated goal was to establish a system
dependent on the Western world. The only statement that addressed
any student death was, "If tanks were used to roll over people. . . .”
The soldiers, however, were named ". . . comrades [who] were injured
or even sacrificed their lives." Xiaoping alluded to the army’s victim¬
ization when they ". . . had their weapons taken by the rioters." How¬
ever, their strength overcame and they were congratulated as ". . .
truly a Great Wall of iron and steel." This article finished with exclama¬
tions of the army as forever the defender of socialism, public interest,
and the country, with a quick and final reminder of the cruelty of the
"enemies."
The first two articles were written for a pro-Democracy public that
had been intensely steered against Communism in the previous
decade. Knowing this, it seems fitting that no motivation on the
 Student Writing 283

soldiers’ part was taken into account. Also that the student death tolls
and the violence against them was of great importance, rather than the
underlying causes and effects of the incident. However, trying to at¬
tain a factual account was the main goal in the American articles. This
is shown best by the quoting of protesters and eyewitnesses, as well
as the impartial language found in the second Times article. We see
the blatant opposition to this approach in the third article, and can
assume some effects it might have on an unenlightened audience. It is
possible to conclude that the American articles give a more accurate
account. However, we must remember that no writer is free from bias
and personal perspective. He/she will inevitably state, or just as im¬
portantly not state, things that will leave the reader lacking a complete
perspective.
 CHAPTER 8

Exploring Causal Relationships—

Writing to Analyze Causes

Critical Thinking Focus: Causal reasoning

Rhetorical Focus: Presenting causal reasoning
Reading Theme: Ecological relationships
Writing Project: Analyzing causal relationships of a recent event

Determining Causal Relationships

The last two chapters have examined thinking and writing patterns that help
us to understand and control our perceptions as we make sense of the world.
Yet even as we perceive and make sense of the world, we experience the hu¬
man tendency to ask why things are as they are: Why do some marriages
endure for years and others end in divorce? Why does a northern area of
the country have relatively mild winters for several years, then a record-
breaking blizzard? Why do certain political ideas take hold during particular
periods of history?
When we contemplate such questions, we are asking about (1) causes,
factors that contribute to events and bring them about, and (2) effects, events
that result directly or indirectly from other events. Much thinking about
causes and effects occurs in an impromptu way as we attempt to guess why
things happened the way they did. For example, in the case of a divorce, we
might say, "I think the marriage failed because of money problems." Though
that might in fact be the reason, it is important to realize that it is only a guess.
Determining causes is a complicated business, since

284
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 285

■ an event can have more than one cause,

■ an event can have various types of causes, and
■ determining causes with certainty is often impossible.

Nevertheless, because we want to "know why," and because it may be

important to know why, we do try to determine causes and effects. When we
think about causal relationships in an organized way, ever conscious of the
difficulty and uncertainty of the task, we are taking part in the important crit¬
ical thinking pattern called causal analysis. And when we use causal analy¬
sis in writing, there are important considerations to be aware of and serious
problems to avoid.

Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships

Causality: relating events in terms of the way some of them are

responsible for bringing about others.

Causal patterns of thinking involve relating events in terms of the influ¬

ence or effect they have on one another. For example, if right now you were
to pinch yourself hard enough to feel it, you would be demonstrating a cause-
and-effect relationship. Stated very simply, a cause is anything responsible for
bringing about something else—usually termed the effect. The cause (the
pinch) brings about the effect (the feeling of pain). When you make a causal
statement, you are simply stating that a causal relationship exists between
two or more things: "The pinch caused the pain in my arm."
Of course, when you make (or think) causal statements, you do not al¬
ways use the word cause. For example, the following statements are all causal
statements. In each case, underline the cause and circle the effect.

■ Since I was the last to leave, I turned off the lights.

■ Taking plenty of vitamin C really cured that terrible cold I had.
■ I accidentally toasted my hand along with the marshmallows by getting
too near the campfire.

In these statements, the words turned off, cured, and getting all point to the fact
that something has caused something else to take place. Our language con¬
tains thousands of these causal "cousins." Now, try composing three state¬
ments of your own that express a causal relationship without using the word
cause.
You are doubtless realizing that you make causal statements all the time,
and that you are constantly thinking in terms of causal relationships, ha fact,
the goal of much of your thinking is to figure out why something happened
286 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

or how something came about, since if you can figure out how and why
things occur, you may be able to predict what will happen in the future.
Predictions of anticipated results form the basis of many of your deci¬
sions. For example, the experience of toasting your hand along with the
marshmallows might lead you to choose a longer stick for toasting—simply
because you are able to figure out the causal relationships involved and make
predictions based on your understanding (namely, a longer stick will keep
your hand well away from the fire).
Consider the following activities, which you probably performed today.
Each activity assumes that certain causal relationships exist, which influ¬
enced your decision to perform them. Explain one such causal relationship
for each activity.

■ Brushing your teeth

Causal relationship:
■ Locking the door
Causal relationship:
■ Studying for an exam
Causal relationship:

Causal Chains
Although you may think of causes and effects in isolation—A caused B—in
reality, causes and effects rarely appear by themselves. They generally appear
as parts of more complex patterns, including three that are about to be ex¬
amined here, causal chains, contributory causes, and interactive causes. Consider
the following scenario:

Your paper on the topic "life after death" is due on Monday morning. You
have reserved the whole weekend to work on it and are just getting started
when the phone rings: a favorite childhood friend is in town and wants to
stay with you for the weekend. You say yes. By Sunday night, you've had a
great weekend but have made little progress on your paper. You brew a pot
of coffee and get started. At 3:00 A.M. you are too exhausted to continue De¬
ciding to get a few hours' sleep, you set the alarm clock for 6:00 A.M., giving
yourself plenty of time to finish up. When you wake up, it's nine o'clock; the
alarm failed to go off. Your class starts in forty minutes. You have no chance
of getting the paper done on time. On your way to class, you mentally review
the causes of this disaster. No longer concerned about life after death, you are
very worried about life after this class!

■ What causes in this situation are responsible for your paper's being late?
■ What do you think is the single most important cause?
■ What do you think your instructor will identify as the most important
cause? Why?
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 287

Causa! thinkins and writins patterns relate events in terms of the

influence or effect they have on one another.

A causal chain, as you have gathered from the preceding examples, is a

situation in which one thing leads to another, which then leads to another,
and so on. There is not just one cause for the resulting effect; there is a whole
string of causes. Which cause in the string is the "real" cause? Your answer
often depends on your perspective on the situation. In the example of the un¬
finished paper on the topic of life after death, you might see the cause as a de¬
fective alarm clock. The instructor, though, might see the cause of the
problem as overall lack of planning. Proper planning, he or she might say,
does not leave things until the last minute, when unexpected problems can
prevent you from reaching your goal. You can illustrate this causal structure
with Figure 8.1.
288 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

CAUSAL CHAIN

CAUSE 0

EFFECT 0 CAUSE

CAUSE 0 EFFECT

EFFECT 0 CAUSE

CAUSE 0 EFFECT

EFFECT 0

Figure 8.1

THINKING+->• WRITING ACTIVITY 8.1

Creating a Causal Chain
1. Create a similar scenario of your own, detailing a chain of causes that results
in being late for class, meeting the "right" person, saving someone's life or
an effect of your own choosing.
2. Review the scenario you have just created. Explain how the "real" cause of the final
effect could vary, depending on your perspective on the situation.

Contributory Causes
In addition to operating in causal chains over a period of time (A leads to B,
which leads to C, which leads to D, etc.), causes can serve simultaneously to
produce an effect. When this happens (as it often does), you have a situation
in which a number of different contributory causes are instrumental in
ringing something about. Instead of working in isolation, each cause con¬
tributes to bringing about the final effect. When this situation occurs, each
cause serves to support and reinforce the action of the other causes, a struc¬
ture illustrated in Figure 8.2.
Consider the following situation:
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 289

CONTRIBUTORY CAUSES

It is the end of the term, and you have been working incredibly hard at
school—writing papers, preparing for exams, finishing up course projects.
You haven't been getting enough sleep, and you haven't been eating regular,
well-balanced meals. To make matters worse, you have been under intense
pressure in your personal life, having serious arguments with the person you
have been dating, and this is constantly on your mind. It is the middle of the
flu season and many people you know have been sick with various respira¬
tory infections. Walking home one evening, you get soaked by an unexpected
downpour. By the time you get home, you are shivering. You soon find your¬
self in bed with a thermometer in your mouth—you are sick!

What was the "cause" of your illness? In this situation, you can see that
evidently, a combination of factors led to your physical breakdown: low re¬
sistance, getting wet and chilled, being exposed to various germs and
viruses, physical exhaustion, lack of proper eating, and so on. Taken by itself,
no one factor might have been enough to cause your illness. Together, they all
contributed to the final outcome.

t THINKING-*-* WRITING ACTIVITY 8.2

Creating a Contributory Cause Scenario

Create a similar scenario of your own, detaiIing the contributory causes that led
to asking someone for a date, choosing a major, losing or winning a game you
played in, or an effect of your own choosing.

Interactive Causes
Our examination of causal relationships has revealed that causes rarely op¬
erate in isolation but instead often influence (and are influenced by) other fac¬
tors. Imagine that you are scheduled to give a speech to a large group of
290 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

people. As your moment in the spotlight approaches, you become anxious,

which results in a dry mouth and throat, making your voice sound more like
a croak. The prospect of sounding like a bullfrog increases your anxiety,
which in turn dries your mouth and constricts your throat further, reducing
your croak to something much worse—silence.
This not uncommon scenario reveals the way different factors can relate
to one another through reciprocal influences that flow back and forth from
one to the other. This type of interactive causal relationship is an extremely
important way of organizing and making sense of your experiences. For in¬
stance, to understand social relationships, such as families, teams, groups of
friends, and so on, you have to understand the complex ways each individ¬
ual influences and is influenced by—all the other members of the group.
Understanding biological systems and other systems is similar to under¬
standing social systems. To understand and explain how an organ such as
your heart, liver, or brain functions, you have to describe its complex, inter¬
active relationships with all the other parts of your biological system. Figure
8.3 illustrates these dynamic causal relationships.

INTERACTIVE CAUSES

Fisure 8.3
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 291

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 8.3

Analyzing Causal Patterns

Read the following passages, which illustrate causal patterns of thinking. For
each passage:
1. Create mind maps that illustrate cause-and-effect relationships.
2. Identify the kind of causal relationship (direct, chain, contributory, or inter¬
active).

Nothing posed a more serious threat to the bald eagle's survival than a
modem chemical compound called DDT. Around 1940, a retired Cana¬
dian banker named Charles L. Broley began keeping track of eagles
nesting in Florida. Each breeding season, he climbed into more than 50
nests, counted the eaglets and put metal bands on their legs. In the late
1940's, a sudden drop-off in the number of young produced led him to
conclude that 80 percent of his birds were sterile. Broley blamed DDT.
Scientists later discovered that DDE, a breakdown product of DDT,
causes not sterility, but a fatal thinning of eggshell among birds of prey.
Applied on cropland all over the United States, the pesticide was run¬
ning off into waterways where it concentrated in fish. The bald eagles
ate the fish and the DDT impaired their ability to reproduce. They were
not alone, of course. Ospreys and pelicans suffered similar setbacks.
—Jim Doherty, “The Bald Eagle and DDT"

It is popularly accepted that Hitler was the major cause of World War II,
but the ultimate causes go much deeper than one personality. First, there
were long-standing German grievances against reparations levied on the
nation following its defeat in World War I. Second, there were severe eco¬
nomic strains that caused resentment among the German people. Third,
there were French and English reluctance to work out a sound disarma¬
ment policy and American noninvolvement in the matter. Finally, there
was the European fear that communism was a much greater danger than
National Socialism. These factors contributed to the outbreak of World
War II. —Gilbert Muller, The American College Handbook

You crunch and chew your way through vast quantities of snacks and
confectioneries and relieve your thirst with multicolored, flavored soft
drinks, with and without calories, for two basic reasons. The first is sim¬
ple; the food tastes good, and you enjoy the sensation of eating it. Sec¬
ond, you associate these foods, often without being aware of it, with the
highly pleasurable experiences depicted in the advertisements used to
promote their sale. Current television advertisements demonstrate this
 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

point: people turn from grumpiness to euphoria after crunching a com

chip. Others water ski into the sunset with their loved ones while drink-
ing a popular soft drink. People entertain on the patio with friends, cook
over campfires without mosquitoes, or go to carnivals with granddad
munching away at the latest candy or snack food. The people portrayed
in these scenarios are all healthy, vigorous, and good looking; one won¬
ders how popular the food they convince you to eat would be if they
would crunch or drink away while complaining about low back pain or
clogged sinuses.—Judith Wurtman, Eating Your Way Through Life

Sufficient Cause and Necessary Condition

In addition to the three patterns of causality we have just examined, we need
to consider sufficient cause and necessary condition. Sufficient cause is a fac¬
tor that of itself is always sufficient for bringing about a certain result. In an
example given earlier in this chapter, a pinch on the arm is a sufficient cause
for pain. Of course, even with a sufficient cause, there may be a necessary
condition, or several necessary conditions, for a result to occur. Having
healthy nerves in the arm and being conscious are two necessary conditions
for someone's feeling pain when pinched on the arm. Another example of
sufficient cause is flipping a light switch to turn on an electric light. An obvi¬
ous necessary condition is a sufficient supply of electricity. (Most of us have
experienced that moment of bewilderment when we flip on a light during a
power failure—and nothing happens!)

Immediate and Remote Causes

Yet another way to think critically about causes is to classify them by how
close in time the cause is to its result. Something that happens just before an
event that it causes is called an immediate cause. A factor that also helped to
bring about this same event but that occurred further back in time is called a
remote cause. For example, a last-minute touchdown could be the immedi¬
ate cause of a football championship, but wise trades made for key players
before the season began might be remote causes.
To give a more personal example, getting an A on a college history exam
is a happy outcome that may result from the following different types of
causes and conditions. The immediate cause could be the fact that you spent
an entire weekend studying, carefully reviewing your notes and rehearsing
answers to possible questions. More remote causes could include your faithful
attendance throughout the semester and your having asked questions in class
to clear up any areas of misunderstanding. An even more remote cause might
be a grade school trip to a museum, which sparked your interest in history.
Necessary conditions for your success include having sufficient intelligence to
understand the material and being in good health on the day of the exam.
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 293

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 8.4

Analyzing Causal Relationships

Read the following essay by Joan Didion, "Holy Water." Then write the answers
to the questions in your journal.
1. Why does Didion think so much about water?
2. What are the effects on her of thinking so much about water?
3. List the three reasons (causes) she gives for authorities' deciding to alter the
water delivery schedule.
4. Identify all the causes that led to Sam Peckinpah’s film company’s having to
wait out the weekend idly in Needles.

from Holy Water

by Joan Didion

Some of us who live in arid parts of the world think about water with a
reverence others might find excessive. The water I will draw tomorrow
from my tap in Malibu is today crossing the Mojave Desert from the
Colorado River, and I like to think about exactly where that water is.
The water I will drink tonight in a restaurant in Hollywood is by now
well down the Los Angeles Aqueduct from the Owens River, and I also
think about exactly where that water is: I particularly like to imagine it
as it cascades down the 45-degree stone steps that aerate Owens water
after its airless passage through the mountain pipes and siphons. As it
happens my own reverence for water has always taken the form of this
constant meditation upon where the water is, of an obsessive interest
not in the politics of water but in the waterworks themselves, in the
movement of water through aqueducts and siphons and pumps and
forebays and afterbays and weirs and drains, in plumbing on the grand
scale. I know the data on water projects I will never see. I know the dif¬
ficulty Kaiser had closing the last two sluiceway gates on the Guri Dam
in Venezuela. I keep watch on evaporation behind the Aswan in Egypt.
I can put myself to sleep imagining the water dropping a thousand feet
into the turbines at Churchill Falls in Labrador. If the Churchill Falls
Project fails to materialize, I fall back on waterworks closer at hand—-
the tailrace at Hoover on the Colorado, the surge tank in the Tehachapi
Mountains that receives California Aqueduct water pumped higher
than water has ever been pumped before—and finally I replay a morn¬
ing when I was seventeen years old and caught, in a military-surplus
life raft, in the construction of the Nimbus Afterbay Dam on the Amer¬
ican River near Sacramento. I remember that at the moment it hap¬
pened I was trying to open a tin of anchovies with capers. I recall the
294 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

raft spinning into the narrow chute through which the river had been
temporarily diverted. I recall being deliriously happy.
I suppose it was partly the memory of that delirium that led me to
visit, one summer morning in Sacramento, the Operations Control Cen¬
ter for the California State Water Project. Actually so much water is
moved around California by so many different agencies that maybe
only the movers themselves know on any given day whose water is
where, but to get a general picture it is necessary only to remember that
Los Angeles moves some of it, San Francisco moves some of it, the Bu¬
reau of Reclamation's Central Valley Project moves some of it and the
California State Water Project moves most of the rest of it, moves a vast
amount of it, moves more water farther than has ever been moved any¬
where. They collect this water up in the granite keeps of the Sierra
Nevada and they store roughly a trillion gallons of it behind the
Oroville Dam and every morning, down at the Project's headquarters in
Sacramento, they decide how much of their water they want to move
the next day. They make this morning decision according to supply and
demand, which is simple in theory but rather more complicated in prac¬
tice. In theory each of the Project's five field divisions—the Oroville, the
Delta, the San Luis, the San Joaquin and the Southern divisions—places
a call to headquarters before nine A.M. and tells the dispatchers how
much water is needed by its local water contractors, who have in turn
based their morning estimates on orders from growers and other big
users. A schedule is made. The gates open and close according to sched¬
ule. The water flows south and the deliveries are made.
In practice this requires prodigious coordination, precision, and the
best efforts of several human minds and that of a Univac 418. In prac¬
tice it might be necessary to hold large flows of water for power pro¬
duction, or to flush out encroaching salinity in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta, the most ecologically sensitive point on the system. In
practice a sudden rain might obviate the need for a delivery when that
delivery is already on its way. In practice what is being delivered here
is an enormous volume of water, not quarts of milk or spools of thread,
and it takes two days to move such a delivery down through Oroville
into the Delta, which is the great pooling place for California water and
has been for some years alive with electronic sensors and telemetering
equipment and men blocking channels and diverting flows and shovel¬
ing fish away from the pumps. It takes perhaps another six days to
move this same water down the California Aqueduct from the Delta to
the Tehachapi and put it over the hill to Southern California. "Putting
some over the hill" is what they say around the Project Operations
Control Center when they want to indicate that they are pumping
Aqueduct water from the floor of the San Joaquin Valley up and over
the Tehachapi Mountains. "Pulling it down" is what they say when they
want to indicate that they are lowering a water level somewhere in the
system. They can put some over the hill by remote control from this
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 295

room in Sacramento with its Univac and its big board and its flashing
lights. They can pull down a pool in the San Joaquin by remote control
from this room in Sacramento with its locked doors and its ringing
alarms and its constant print-outs of data from sensors out there in the
water itself. From this room in Sacramento the whole system takes on
the aspect of a perfect three-billion-dollar hydraulic toy, and in certain
ways it is. "LET'S START DRAINING QUAIL AT 12:00" was the 10:51
A.M. entry on the electronically recorded communications log the day I
visited the Operations Control Center. "Quail" is a reservoir in Los An¬
geles County with a gross capacity of 1,636,018,000 gallons. "OK" was
the response recorded in the log. I knew at that moment that I had
missed the only vocation for which I had any instinctive affinity: I
wanted to drain Quail myself.
Not many people I know carry their end of the conversation when I
want to talk about water deliveries, even when I stress that these deliv¬
eries affect their lives, indirectly, every day. "Indirectly" is not quite
enough for most people I know. This morning, however, several people
I know were affected not "indirectly" but "directly" by the way the wa¬
ter moves. They had been in New Mexico shooting a picture, one se¬
quence of which required a river deep enough to sink a truck, the kind
with a cab and a trailer and fifty or sixty wheels. It so happened that no
river near the New Mexico location was running that deep this year.
The production was therefore moved today to Needles, California,
where the Colorado River normally runs, depending upon releases
from Davis Dam, eighteen to twenty-five feet deep. Now. Lollow this
closely: yesterday we had a freak tropical storm in Southern California,
two inches of rain in a normally dry month, and because this rain
flooded the fields and provided more irrigation than any grower could
possibly want for several days, no water was ordered from Davis Dam.
No order, no releases.
Supply and demand.
As a result the Colorado was running only seven feet deep past Nee¬
dles today, Sam Peckinpah's desire for eighteen feet of water in which
to sink a truck not being the kind of demand anyone at Davis Dam is
geared to meet. The production closed down for the weekend. Shooting
will resume Tuesday, providing some grower orders water and the
agencies controlling the Colorado release it. Meanwhile many gaffers,
best boys, cameramen, assistant directors, script supervisors, stunt dri¬
vers and maybe even Sam Peckinpah are waiting out the weekend in
Needles, where it is often 110 degrees at five p.m. and hard to get dinner
after eight. This is a California parable, but a true one.
I have always wanted a swimming pool, and never had one. When it
became generally known a year or so ago that California was suffering
severe drought, many people in water-rich parts of the country seemed
obscurely gratified, and made frequent reference to Californians having
to brick up their swimming pools. In fact a swimming pool requires,
296 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

once it has been filled and the filter has begun its process of cleaning
and recirculating the water, virtually no water, but the symbolic content
of swimming pools has always been interesting: a pool is misappre¬
hended as a trapping of affluence, real or pretended, and of a kind of he¬
donistic attention to the body. Actually a pool is, for many of us in the
West, a symbol not of affluence but of order, of control over the uncon¬
trollable. A pool is water, made available and useful, and is, as such, in¬
finitely soothing to the western eye.
It is easy to forget that the only natural force over which we have any
control out here is water, and that only recently. In my memory Cali¬
fornia summers were characterized by the coughing in the pipes that
meant the well was dry, and California winters by all-night watches on
rivers about to crest, by sandbagging, by dynamite on the levees and
flooding on the first floor. Even now the place is not all that hospitable to
extensive settlement. As I write a fire has been burning out of control for
two weeks in the ranges behind the Big Sur coast. Flash floods last night
wiped out all major roads into Imperial County. I noticed this morning a
hairline crack in a living-room tile from last week's earthquake, a 4.4 I
never felt. In the part of California where I now live aridity is the single
most prominent feature of the climate, and I am not pleased to see, this
year, cactus spreading wild to the sea. There will be days this winter
when the humidity will drop to ten, seven, four. Tumbleweed will blow
against my house and the sound of the rattlesnake will be duplicated a
hundred times a day by dried bougainvillea drifting in my driveway.
The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe
the illusion real live here in only the most temporary way. I know as well
as the next person that there is considerable transcendent value in a river
running wild and undammed, a river running free over granite, but I
have also lived beneath such a river when it was running in flood, and
gone without showers when it was running dry.
"The West begins," Bernard DeVoto wrote, "where the average an¬
nual rainfall drops below twenty inches." This is maybe the best defin¬
ition of the West I have ever read, and it goes a long way toward
explaining my own passion for seeing the water under control, but
many people I know persist in looking for psychoanalytical implica¬
tions in this passion. As a matter of fact I have explored, in an amateur
way, the more obvious of these implications, and come up with nothing
interesting. A certain external reality remains, and resists interpretation.
The West begins where the average annual rainfall drops below twenty
inches. Water is important to people who do not have it, and the same
is true of control. Some fifteen years ago I tore a poem by Karl Shapiro
from a magazine and pinned it on my kitchen wall. This fragment of
paper is now on the wall of a sixth kitchen, and crumbles a little when¬
ever I touch it, but I keep it there for the last stanza, which has for me
the power of a prayer:
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 297

It is raining in California, a straight rain

Cleaning the heavy oranges on the bush,
Filling the gardens till the gardens flow,
Shining the olives, tiling the gleaming tile.
Waxing the dark camellia leaves more green,
Flooding the daylong valleys like the Nile.

I thought of those lines almost constantly on the morning in Sacra¬

mento when I went to visit the California State Water Project Opera¬
tions Control Center. If I had wanted to drain Quail at 10:51 that
morning, I wanted, by early afternoon, to do a great deal more. I wanted
to open and close the Clifton Court Forebay intake gate. I wanted to
produce some power down at the San Luis Dam. I wanted to pick a pool
at random on the Aqueduct and pull it down and then refill it, watch¬
ing for the hydraulic jump. I wanted to put some water over the hill and
I wanted to shut down all flow from the Aqueduct into the Bureau of
Reclamation's Cross Valley Canal, just to see how long it would take
somebody over at Reclamation to call up and complain. I stayed as long
as I could and watched the system work on the big board with the
lighted checkpoints. The Delta salinity report was coming in on one of
the teletypes behind me. The Delta tidal report was coming in on an¬
other. The earthquake board, which has been desensitized to sound its
alarm (a beeping tone for Southern California, a high-pitched one for
the north) only for those earthquakes which register at least 3.0 on the
Richter Scale, was silent. I had no further business in this room and yet
I wanted to stay the day. I wanted to be the one, that day, who was shin¬
ing the olives, filling the gardens, and flooding the daylong valleys like
the Nile. I want it still.

THINKING+->WRITING ACTIVITY 8.5

Analyzing Causal Relationships

Read the following excerpt from Carl Hiaasen’s article "The Last Days of Florida
Bay," originally published in Sports Illustrated. Then write the answers to the
questions in your journal.
1. List the causes Hiassen identifies as having brought about the present con¬
dition of the bay.
2. What is the immediate cause?
3. Do any of these causes make up a causal chain?
4. Are any of the causes contributory?
5. Are any of the causes interactive? If so, how?
298 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

from The Last Days of Florida Bay

by Carl Hiaasen

On a gum-gray June afternoon, between thundershowers, my son and

I are running a 17-foot skiff through the backcountry of Florida Bay. The
wind has lain down, the water is silk. Suddenly, a glorious eruption:
bottle-nosed dolphins, an acre of them, in a spree of feeding, play and
rambunctious lust. From a hundred yards we can hear the slap of flukes
and the hiss of blowholes. We can see the misty geysers, the slash of
black dorsals, the occasional detonation as a luckless bait fish gets gob¬
bled.
No matter how often I witness the sight. I'm always dazzled. A
stranger to these waters could only assume he was traveling in authen¬
tic wilderness, pure and thriving. If only it were so.
It's easy, when surrounded by dolphins, to forget that the bay is fate¬
fully situated downstream from the ulcerous sprawl of Florida's Gold
Coast. Four-and-a-half million people live only a morning's drive away.
The river that feeds the backcountry is the Everglades, sometimes
parched and sometimes flooded. Water that once ran untainted and
bountiful is now intercepted and pumped extravagantly to sugarcane
fields, swimming pools, golf courses, city reservoirs—and even the At¬
lantic. What's left is dispensed toward the bay in a criminally negligent
fraction of its natural flow. The water isn't as clean as it once was, and
it doesn't always arrive in the right season.
That the bay is sick is hardly a surprise. The wonder is that it has sur¬
vived so long and the dolphins haven't fled to sea forever.
That's why it is imperative that a natural flow be restored as soon as
possible, while the political will and funds exist to do it. The engineer¬
ing isn t as daunting as the politics. Powerful special-interest groups are
demanding a say in where the lifeblood of the Everglades goes, how
much they get to keep and what they're allowed to dump in the water
on its way downstream.
The battle begins up at Lake Okeechobee, where Big Sugar finally
(and reluctantly) has agreed to filter phosphates from the runoff of the
cane fields. Farther south, the cities siphon heavily from the diked “con¬
servation areas"—cheap, accessible reservoirs that help fuel the break¬
neck westward growth in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties.
Even below Miami, on Florida's still rural southern tip, water policy is
disproportionately influenced by private interests. In the dry months
what would otherwise trickle through the glades to the bay is diverted
instead to a small cluster of tomato and avocado farms. Conversely, in
the wet season the surplus water is pumped off the fields to protect the
crops. The canal network was absurdly designed to flush millions of
gallons not into the Everglades (which were made to absorb them) but
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 299

into Manatee Bay and Barnes Sound, which are saltwater bodies. The
effect of such a copious, sudden injection of freshwater is an overdose—
lethal on an impressive scale to fish, corals and other marine life.
But it's all for a good cause. Upstream the avocados are plump and safe.

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 8.6

Analyzing Causal Relationships

Read the following excerpt from Coastal Alert, by Dwight Holing; then write the
answers to the questions in your journal.
1. What causes for oil spills does Holing discuss? List them.
2. Identify each cause as sufficient, contributory, interactive, or part of a causal
chain.

from Coastal Alert

by Dwight Holing

The environmental impacts of oil and gas production on the outer con¬
tinental shelf (OCS) have been debated for many years. The issues arise
from the complexity of coastal and offshore marine processes and
ecosystems, human socioeconomic systems, and interactions with OCS
oil and gas development activities.... Mounting scientific evidence re¬
veals that each step of offshore energy development—from exploration
to drilling, from transport to refining—exposes land, air, and water to a
host of pollutants. Hazardous wastes and air toxics are just a few of the
harmful by-products that can affect marine life as well as the quality of
life onshore.
The Department of the Interior's call to open the nation's coast to off¬
shore drilling raises many questions: What are the effects of toxic and
other waste generated by drilling? What are the risks of oil spills foul¬
ing the nation's coast? What will the impact be on marine wildlife and
the commercial fishery? How will the tourist industry be affected? Will
the coast become industrialized? Are there alternatives to offshore oil
drilling? Each of these issues is addressed in the following pages.

Oil Spills

Offshore drilling causes oil spills. Between 1964 and 1985, twenty-one
major spills involving one thousand barrels or more occurred as a result
of drilling and production operations on the OCS. Those numbers are
300 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

sure to increase if more sites are opened to drilling. The DOI estimated
that twenty-two to forty-six major spills would occur as a result of the
1987-92 five-year program. New oil drilling off the coast of Southern
California, for example, would increase the chance of a large oil spill in
the region appreciably and make a major spill almost certain within the
next thirty-one years, according to a DOI assessment. The study found
one chance in seven of a "large" spill of one thousand barrels. The prob¬
ability of one or more major spills occurring from all OCS activities off
Southern California is 99+ percent.
Those risk estimates don't even take into consideration spills under
one thousand barrels, even though such spills make up 97 percent of all
spills. The DOI does not input data of spills of this size into its Oil Spill
Risk Analysis (OSRA), a computer model used to estimate risk. This
means that official risk estimates contained in environmental impact
statements—key documents prepared before deciding whether or not
to drill in specific areas—can underestimate the likelihood of an oil spill
by a factor of as much as 260.
According to a 1989 report issued by the National Academy of Sci¬
ences, the DOI's OSRA is fatally flawed. The NAS found that the DOI
lacks important scientific information about physical oceanography on
which oil spill risk estimates are based. The NAS report concluded that
"[mjodel studies need to be supplemented with observations. Trajec¬
tory predictions or estimations of trajectory statistics realistic for use in
risk analysis or in accident management cannot be obtained without
new fieldwork...."
The report also faulted DOI for relying "too heavily upon the OSRA
model for prediction of impacts. This has resulted in an emphasis on the
probability of an oil spill instead of on the effects of a spill."

Spill Sources

A variety of sources during offshore development and production can

bigger oil spill, including tanker accidents, well blowouts, pipeline
leaks, and routine operations.

Tankers. Tanker mishaps are the leading cause of spills. Take the six-
month period between December 1988 and June 1989, for example. Six
major oil spills off the U.S. coast were caused by ships. On December 22
a collision between two vessels caused 230,000 gallons of oil to spill off
Washington's Olympic Peninsula. On March 3 the oil tanker Exxon
Houston struck a coral reef near Honolulu and spilled 117,000 gallons of
fuel. Three weeks later its sister ship, the Exxon Valdez, ran aground in
Prince William Sound, flooding the pristine waters with nearly 11 mil¬
lion gallons of Alaskan crude. On June 23, about one million gallons of
fuel began washing ashore in Newport, Rhode Island, from a grounded
Greek tanker. That same day, 250,000 gallons of heavy crude oil were
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 301

spilled in the Houston Ship Channel near Galveston, Texas, when a tug-
driven barge collided with a cargo vessel. And the next day, an
Uruguayan oil tanker spilled 800,000 gallons of fuel into the Delaware
River.
According to the U.S. Coast Guard, there were 981 accidents involv¬
ing tankers registered in the United States from 1981 through 1988, in¬
cluding 175 collisions. During the same time 413 foreign-registered
tankers were involved in accidents in U.S. waters.
Millions of gallons of oil are dumped into U.S. waters each year as a
result. In 1988, there were five thousand to six thousand spills involv¬
ing oil and other toxic substances along our coasts and in other naviga¬
ble waters, says the Coast Guard. Of those spills, twelve were classified
as major because they involved 100,000 gallons or more. An additional
ten spilled 10,000 to 100,000 gallons, and the rest involved less than
10,000 gallons. Data from the Coast Guard's Pollution Incident Report¬
ing System reveal that 91 million gallons of oil and 36 million gallons of
other toxic substances were spilled into U.S. waters from 1980 through
1986. Of the spilled oil, two-thirds came from oil tankers and barges,
usually because of ruptures in accidents. The rest came from offshore
drilling platforms, refineries, and other sources such as runoff and tank
ballast washings.
Human error, according to the Coast Guard, is responsible for most
of the accidents. Though spills do result from negligence by intoxicated
crew members, most accidents are made by well-trained seamen and
have nothing to do with drugs or alcohol or incompetence.
Tankers are vulnerable to all kinds of accidents caused by human
error. On February 7, 1990, for example, the American Trader spilled
about 400,000 gallons of Alaskan crude off the Southern California coast
when it apparen tly struck its own anchor. The tanker punctured its hull
while trying to hook up with a mooring buoy and unload its cargo via
an underwater pipeline that feeds refineries and tank farms along the
coast.

Drilling platforms. Offshore rigs contribute significantly to the total

amount of oil spilled in U.S. waters. During drilling there is a risk of a
blowout, an uncontrolled discharge of oil from the drill hole. A blowout
can occur when, because of equipment failure, human error, or unpre¬
dicted geological conditions, the pressure in the underground oil reser¬
voir cannot be contained.
The most famous U.S. blowout took place in California's Santa Bar¬
bara Channel in 1969. It happened when Union Oil was drilling nearly
one mile below the ocean's floor. The protective casing used to line the
5,000-foot deep well was only 240 feet long—too short to control the
pressure of surging oil. The drill's bit went through a fracture in the rock
and the pressurized oil shot out through the fissures. The pressure was
so great that it blasted a hole in the seabed 200 yards away from the
302 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

well. For twelve days oil gushed unchecked into the ocean. Some 50,000
to 70,000 barrels of oil spread over 660 square miles, fouling 150 miles
of coastline and leaving thousands of dead birds, mammals, and fish in
its wake.
is Oil can also leak from holding tanks on board the drilling platforms.
Earthquakes, vessel collisions, structural failures, human and opera¬
tional errors, and mechanical defects can rupture storage tanks.
Oil is also discharged into the sea from the produced water—water
in the formation that is produced along with oil. Produced water often
contains large amounts of dissolved or emulsified oil and grease, as
much as thousands of barrels a year.

Pipelines. The pipelines used to transfer the oil from the platform to
either offshore or onshore processing plants are also vulnerable to leaks
and ruptures. Corrosion, being struck by a ship's anchor, and mechani¬
cal defects are the leading causes for the majority of all pipeline failures.
Pipeline leaks can also be triggered by earthquakes, internal corrosion,
and human error.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 8.7

Analyzing Causal Relationships

Read the followins excerpt from This Land Is Your Land, by Jon Naar and Alex
J. Naar, then write the answers to the questions in your journal.
1. List the causes of the degradation of the ocean environment that the excerpt
discusses.
2. Identify each cause as sufficient, contributory, interactive, or part of a causal
chain.

from This Land Is Your Land

by John Naar and Alex J. Naar

Until relatively recently it was assumed that, because of their size and
the huge quantities of water they contain, oceans had an infinite capac¬
ity to absorb wastes by dilution and the natural process of regeneration.
However, in the 1950s and 60s Rachel Carson's writings and Jacques
Cousteau s films and books alerted the public to a growing threat to the
ocean's ecosystems. The thinning of seabirds' eggshells by DDT, de¬
scribed by Carson, was the first of a long series of reports on degrada¬
tion of the marine environment. In 1970 the newly formed U.S. Council
on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued a major warning: Pollution
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 303

had already closed one-fifth of the nation's commercial shellfish beds;

increasing levels of ocean dumping had created serious environmental
damage; and there was a vast new threat from municipalities using the
oceans "as a convenient sink for their wastes."
Overfishing; dumping of garbage, human sewage, and industrial
wastes; oil spills, runoff of chemicals from agriculture and transporta¬
tion; heating of rivers and bays from nuclear reactors and conventional
power plants; acid rain; dredging; channelization; and sandblasting of
ships: These are some of the ways in which aquatic ecosystems are now
subjected to damage and destruction comparable with that of Super¬
fund toxic-waste sites and air pollution from carbon and sulfur diox¬
ides, CFCs, ozone, and other substances.

Overfishing

Overfishing is a global problem threatening many species of marine life

and the systems of which they are part. Since the 1980s the world's
yearly catch of fish has exceeded what the United Nations considers to
be a maximum sustainable yield. This is the result of a sharply in¬
creased world demand for fish, the development of new factory-fishing
technologies, and government encouragement for building ever bigger
fishing boats and using nets with smaller mesh sizes that trap fish too
young and small to be eaten.

Catch as Catch Can

In the late 1980s the fishing of capelin, a tiny sardine used in animal feed
and commercial fats, was banned because of an interrelated chain of
events. The catching of capelin off the shores of Norway deprived cod
of their natural food and forced them to eat their own young. With the
disappearance of capelin and cod, the seals were deprived of their main
source of food. Then hundreds of thousands of starving seals invaded
the Norwegian coast in search of food, depleting coastal fish stocks and
destroying salmon hatcheries in the fjords. At the same time, sixty thou¬
sand seals were accidentally caught and drowned in Norwegian fishing
nets.

Natural Causes

Natural causes can also contribute to a decline in marine life. A recently

identified climatic phenomenon that recurs every three to eight years,
known as El Nino, prevents the upwelling of cold water to the ocean's
surface in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific, depriving it of nutrients, caus¬
ing thousands of seabirds to starve and destroying huge numbers of
fish and other marine organisms. Along with overfishing, El Nino is be¬
lieved to have contributed to the failure of the anchovetta catch off
304 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

Ecuador and the collapse of the California sardine fisheries in the mid-
1960s and early 1970s.

Ocean Dumping

Dumping of sludge, dredged and radioactive materials and burning of

wastes at sea represent serious threats to marine ecosystems. Sludge, a
mudlike semiliquid end product of sewage treatment, often contains
lead, mercury, zinc, chromium, cadmium, copper, pesticides, and
disease-causing microorganisms and pathogens. These harmful sub¬
stances can kill marine organisms and reduce species' vitality and
growth. Nutrients contained in the sludge, while useful on land, can
overfertilize ocean waters, resulting in eutrophication. The high organic
content of sludge can drastically change the kinds of organisms that can
live on the bottom of the ocean.
In 1976 a huge fish kill was discovered off the New Jersey shore
just south of a sewage sludge dump located within a few miles of
New York Harbor. "I went out to a shipwreck and it was completely
dead—starfish, eels, lobsters, all sizes of crab—everything was dead,"
said Pat Yana ton, a microbiologist and environmental committeeman
for the Eastern Diveboat Association. In 1991, by order of Congress and
its own state legislature. New Jersey ceased dumping treated sewage
sludge into the Atlantic Ocean. New York City and its neighboring
Westchester and Nassau counties were given a June 1992 deadline to
stop dumping their annual 8 million tons of sewage sludge into the At¬
lantic 106 miles east of Cape May, New Jersey, where the marine envi¬
ronment and the ecological balance of the ocean might already have
been impacted.
Unfortunately, even when an ocean dump is phased out, it continues
to endanger marine ecosystems for decades because, as in New York's
case, it leaves behind millions of tons of solid wastes, industrial residue,
and other contaminants accumulated over long periods of time. In ad¬
dition to polluting the area where they are dumped, many of the toxic
materials are carried by currents to threaten vital plant and animal habi¬
tats hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away.
The alternatives to dumping cost money. New Jersey invested more
than $200 million on new processing equipment and another $26 mil¬
lion a year for shipping the sludge by truck and train to a short-term
landfill 1,450 miles away in Texas. On a longer-term basis, different dis¬
posal methods must be found because there is growing nationwide re¬
sistance against trucking waste to out-of-state landfills. There is also
increased opposition to incineration of waste because of air pollution,
building costs, and disposal of the toxic ash. At an international meet¬
ing held in January 1991 at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, a number of proposals for delivering
sewage sludge to the deep-sea bottom without contaminating the up-
 Thinking Critically About Causal Relationships 305

per levels of seawater were discussed. In one of them an 18-inch hose

several miles long with a 40-ton nozzle at its lower end would be low¬
ered from a sludge ship to dump its load close to the bottom. Another
idea was to link 55-gallon drums of waste into "trains" with a heavy
nose cone that would sink at 50 miles per hour, penetrating deep into
the bottom ooze, which in some regions is thousands of feet deep. Con¬
cerns were raised, however, that too little is known about the long-term
fate of such sludge and its effects on marine life, especially deep¬
dwelling organisms.
The most environmentally sound solution is to reclaim the sludge by
removing the heavy metals and other contaminants and use it as a fer¬
tilizer rather than dumping it in the ocean or in a landfill. However,
even this option can be difficult to implement on a large scale. In March
1992 New York City announced that it was proceeding with a billion-
dollar plan to build eight plants to convert the 13,000 tons of sludge it
produces daily into fertilizer, soil conditioner, or landfill cover that the
city could use in parks and housing-project grounds. Residents and
business people in the boroughs where the plants would be built ex¬
pressed opposition to the plan because they feared noxious odors and
greatly increased truck traffic. At least one of the sites was reported to
have heavily contaminated soil. However, according to Albert Apple-
ton, New York City's commissioner of environmental protection, the
plants would be "completely odor-controlled." The volume of trucks
would be reduced by the use of barges; as for the contaminated site,
"We can clean it up and bring it back into the city's land-use inventory,"
he promised.
In June 1992, one year after a Congressional deadline. New York City
ceased dumping sewage sludge in the Atlantic, but there are more than
one hundred licensed ocean dump sites in the Gulf of Mexico, the At¬
lantic, and the Pacific that receive materials dredged primarily from
harbor and river channels. These materials are a mix of water and sed¬
iments often containing heavy metals, PCBs, oil, grease, and other pol¬
lutants. However, even "clean" dredged materials can harm marine life,
because they bury marine organisms and increase the level of sus¬
pended sediments. The bulk of this dredging is carried out by the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers, whose task it is to maintain free passage for
ports and harbors. If the corps' dredging program continues, there will
be an even greater threat to marine ecosystems in coastal and ocean wa¬
ters.

Radioactive Waste
The Ocean Dumping Act expressly bars high-level radioactive waste
dumping at sea. But between 1946 and 1970 the United States was al¬
lowed to dump more than 110,000 packages of plutonium and cesium
into its waters, most of it close to major metropolitan areas—the Faral-
306 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

Ion Islands 30 miles west of San Francisco, Massachusetts Bay just out¬
side of Boston, and two dump sites within 3 miles of Newark, New Jer¬
sey. According to a 1990 NOAA study, about a quarter of the 47,500
barrels of the atomic waste dumped in the Gulf of the Farallones Na¬
tional Marine Sanctuary have ruptured, threatening Pacific herring,
Dover sole, rockfish, sablefish, and Dungeness crab commercially
fished in the area. Plutonium, which can remain "toxic for hundreds of
thousands of years, and cesium have been found at levels "possibly
more than 1,000 times the level expected to occur naturally." The Faral-
lon Islands have the largest population of seabirds south of Alaska and
an abundance of fish, invertebrates, and marine mammals. In January
1991 NOAA began a $900,000 study to determine the extent of the dam¬
age from the radioactive material to the richest marine habitat in the
West.

Ocean Incineration
Burning wastes aboard ships is also regulated by the Ocean Dumping
Act, because it releases waste and toxic by-products into the marine en¬
vironment.
The law permits burning only liquid wastes of a certain composition,
representing roughly 8 percent of the 250 million metric tons of haz¬
ardous wastes produced every year in the United States. Yet even this
"small" percentage (some 2 million metric tons) of concentrated toxic
and carcinogenic material is lethal to marine life immediately or
through long-term contamination; it also can affect humans who eat the
poisoned fish and seafood. Another problem is spills and leaks during
the transportation of the wastes to the incinerator ship or during the ac¬
tual burning at sea, which in turn causes additional problems of water
pollution and ecosystem damage.

Thinking Critically About Causal Fallacies

Because causality plays such a dominant role in the way we make sense of the
world, it is not surprising that people make many mistakes and many errors
in judgment in trying to determine causal relationships. These mistakes and
errors can lead to unsound arguments, or fallacies. The following are some
of the most common fallacies associated with causality.

■ Questionable cause
■ Misidentification of the cause
■ Post hoc ergo propter hoc
■ Slippery slope
 Thinking Critically About Causal Fallacies 307

Questionable Cause
The fallacy of questionable cause occurs when someone presents a causal re¬
lationship for which no real evidence exists. Superstitious beliefs, such as "If
you break a mirror, you will have seven years of bad luck," usually fall into
this category. Some people feel that astrology, a system of beliefs tying one's
personality and fortunes in life to the position of the planets at the moment
of birth, also falls into this category.
Consider the following passage from the Confessions of St. Augustine.
Does it seem to support the causal assertions of astrology, or deny them? Why?

Firminus had heard from his father that when his mother had been
pregnant with him, a slave belonging to a friend of his father's was also
about to bear. It happened that since the two women had their babies at
the same instant, the men were forced to cast exactly the same horo¬
scope for each newborn child down to the last detail, one for his son,
the other for the little slave. Yet Firminus, born to wealth in his parents'
house, had one of the more illustrious careers in life whereas the slave
had no alleviation of his life's burden.

Other examples of this fallacy include explanations like those given by

fourteenth-century sufferers of the bubonic plague who claimed that the Jews
were poisoning the Christians' wells. This charge was nonsensical. An equal
percentage of Jews were dying of the plague. No evidence supported the
allegation.

Misidentification of the Cause

In causal situations, we are not always certain about what is causing what—
in other words, about what is the cause and what is the effect. For example,
in the following pairs of items, which are the causes and which are the ef¬
fects? Why?

■ Headaches and tension

■ Failure in school and personal problems
■ Shyness and lack of confidence
■ Substance abuse and emotional difficulties

Sometimes a third factor is responsible for two effects we are examining.

Headaches and tension may both be the result of a third element—such as
some new medication we are taking. When we fail to recognize the third ele¬
ment, we commit the fallacy of ignoring a common cause. There also exists the
fallacy of assuming a common cause—such as assuming that one's sore toe and
earache both stem from the same cause.
308 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

The translation of the Latin phrase post hoc ergo propter hoc is "After that,
therefore because of that." It refers to situations in which, because two things
occur close together in time, we assume that one has caused the other. Sup¬
pose your team wins the game each time you wear your favorite shirt; you
just may be tempted to conclude that the one event (wearing your favorite
shirt) has some influence on the other event (winning the game). As a result,
you may continue to wear this shirt "for good luck." It is easy to see how this
sort of mistaken thinking can lead to all sorts of superstitious beliefs. Con¬
sider the following causal conclusion arrived at by Mark Twain's fictional
character Huckleberry Finn in the following passage. How would you ana¬
lyze the conclusion that he comes to?

I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left
shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do.
Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than
two years he got drunk and fell off a shot tower and spread himself out
so that he was just a kind of layer.... But anyway, it all came of looking
at the moon that way, like a fool.

Can you identify any superstitious beliefs or practices of your own that may
have resulted from post hoc thinking?

Slippery Slope
The causal fallacy of slippery slope is illustrated in the following advice:

Don't miss that first deadline, because if you do, it won't be long before
you're missing all your deadlines. This will spread to the rest of your
life, as you will be late for every appointment. This terminal procrasti¬
nation will ruin your career, and friends and relatives will abandon
you. You will end up a lonely failure who is unable to ever do anything
on time.

Slippery slope thinking asserts that one undesirable action will in¬
evitably lead to a worse action, which will necessarily lead to still a worse
one, all the way down the "slippery slope" to some terrible disaster at the
bottom. Although this progression may indeed occur, there certainly is no
causal guarantee that it will. Create slippery slope scenarios for one of the fol¬
lowing warnings:

■ If you get behind on one credit card payment...

■ If you fail that first test...
■ If you eat that first fudge square . ..
 Thinking Critically About Causal Fallacies 309

THINKING*-WRITING ACTIVITY 8.8

Analyzing Causal Fallacies

Review the four causal fallacies just described; then identify and explain the
reasoning pitfalls illustrated in the following examples:

1. The person who won the lottery says she dreamed the winning numbers. I’m
going to start writing down the numbers in my dreams.
2. Yesterday I forgot to take my vitamins and I immediately got sick. That mis¬
take won’t occur again!
3. I’m warning you: if you start missing classes, it won't be long before you
flunk out of school and ruin your future.
4. I always take the first seat in the bus. Today I took another seat, and the bus
broke down.
5. I think the reason I’m not doing well in school is that I’m just not interested.
Also, I simply don’t have enough time to study.

Causal Claims
Many people want us to see the cause-and-effect relationships that they be¬
lieve exist, and they sometimes utilize questionable or outright fallacious rea¬
soning. Consider the following examples:

1. Politicians assure us that a vote for them will result in "a chicken in every
pot and a car in every garage."
2. Advertisers tell us that using this detergent will leave our wash "cleaner
than clean, whiter than white."
3. Doctors tell us that eating a balanced diet will result in better health.
4. Educators tell us that a college degree is worth an average of $830,000 ad¬
ditional income over an individual's lifetime.
5. Scientists inform us that nuclear energy' will result in a better life for all of us.

In each of these examples, certain causal claims are being made about
how the world operates, in an effort to persuade us to adopt a certain point
of view. As critical thinkers, it is our duty to evaluate these various causal
claims as to whether they are sensible.

THINKING*—WRITING ACTIVITY 8.9

Evaluating Causal Claims

Explain how you might go about evaluating whether each of the following
causal claims makes sense.
310 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

■ Example: Taking the right vitamins will improve health.

■ Evaluation: Review the medical research that examines the effect of taking
vitamins on health; speak to a nutritionist; speak to a doctor.
1. Sweet Smell deodorant will keep you drier all day long.
2. Allure perfume will cause men to be attracted to you.
3. Natural childbirth will result in a more fulfilling birth experience.
4. Aspirin Plus will give you faster, longer-lasting relief from headaches.
5. Radial tires will improve the gas mileage of your car.

Writing Thoughtfully About Causal Relationships

Clearly, because of the complexity of determining cause and effect, writing a
causal analysis requires special care. Causal analyses range all the way from
rigorous scientific studies that can establish causes with some degree of cer¬
tainty to theorizing about events in our personal lives. The causal analysis as¬
signments you encounter in college are likely to be of two types: those for
which you conduct some kind of study to determine causality and then re¬
port your results, and those for which you research what others have said
about the causes of an event and report what they have said.
For the first type, you are likely to be given a format, such as for a lab re¬
port or an experimental design. It will be important for you to follow direc¬
tions as you plan and conduct your study, and important for you to observe
the conventions of the discipline in which you are writing as you prepare
your report. Models are extremely helpful, so study them carefully if your
professor provides them. If not, ask a librarian for guidance.
The second type, in which you report what others have said about the
causes of an event, can be structured in the traditional essay format. Though
you may worry that a paper for which research is required will be more dif¬
ficult to write, you may be pleasantly surprised to discover that the sources
discovered in research became "assistant writers"; the authors of the sources
help you complete the paper by providing information for you to include. Of
course, the information from sources must be properly documented, but cor¬
rectly documenting information not only is required for honesty but also
shows your audience that you have "done your homework."
The principles for presenting causal analysis in writing are not rules set
in stone; at times you may have good reason for varying or ignoring them. In
general, though, it makes sense for you to follow them.

1. Be cautious. Causal relationships are difficult to prove. You may have to

use language such as possible cause or may have affected.
2. Name the event, and perhaps describe it and/or people's reactions to it,
in your introduction.
 Writing Thoughtfully About Causal Relationships 311

3. In your thesis statement, indicate that you will be analyzing the causes of
this event or that you will be reporting what others have said about its
causes.
4. Discuss each cause in a separate section (at least one body paragraph for
each cause).
5. Amplify on how or why each cause brought about the event. Simply nam¬
ing the cause is not enough.
6. Whenever possible, focus on immediate rather than remote causes.
7. Use correct vocabulary to identify causes (contributory, causal chain, in¬
teractive, sufficient, etc.).
8. Represent accurately any sources you use and document them honestly
and correctly.
9. Avoid logical fallacies, such as post hoc ergo propter hoc.
10. In your conclusion, name the causes and discuss the level of certainty
about them. You may, of course, wish to do more than this in your con¬
clusion.
312 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

WRITING PROJECT

This chapter has included both readings and Thinkings Writing Activities
that encouraged you to think about causal relationships in your own life and
in the environment. Be sure to reread what you wrote for those activities; you
may be able to use some of it for help in completing this project.

WRITING PROJECT Analyzing Causal Relationships

of a Recent Event
Write an essay in which you report and discuss causes of a specific
event that occurred within the last three years. Include material
from at least three sources. After you have drafted your essay, revise
it to the best of your ability. Follow instructions given by your pro¬
fessor as to topic limits and specifications, length, format, and so
forth.

Begin by considering the key elements in the Thinkings >Writing Model.

Purpose
You have a variety of purposes here. You can satisfy your own curiosity about
why an event occurred and explain the causes to others. You can improve
your ability to think critically about causal relationships. You can hone your
revision skills by working through the revision questions that follow. Of
course, you also want to receive a satisfactory grade by completing the as¬
signment well.

Audience
You have a range of readers within your audience. You are an important au¬
dience, for in researching and analyzing causes, you can become a better
thinker and possibly a more concerned citizen. Your classmates can be a valu¬
able audience for review of a draft, reacting as intelligent readers who are not
as knowledgeable as you about the causes of this event. Others interested in
the event may find your paper enlightening, so you might find a way to share
it. Finally, your instructor remains the audience who will judge how well you
have planned, drafted, and revised. As a writing teacher, he or she cares
about a clear focus, logical organization, specific details and examples, accu¬
rate documentation of sources, and correctness. Keep these in mind as you re¬
vise, edit, and proofread.

Subject
You should think seriously about the event, in terms of its causes and of its
effects on society. For example, if you decide to write about an event affect-
 The Writing Process 313

ing the environment, consider that all of us need to be concerned about both
positive and negative environmental changes. Not only our future, but our
children's and their children's futures depend on our careful stewardship of
the earth. At the same time, there are competing economic and political pres¬
sures that can act against a strict conservationist view. By researching and an¬
alyzing even one specific event, we can add to our own knowledge and that
of our audience, thereby preparing for responsible future action.

Writer
You will be using sources for this essay, but you should not feel intimidated
by them; rather, you should view your sources as "assistant writers" for you.
Or think of yourself as the host of a talk show with your sources as the guests;
others will speak, but you will be in control, so your paper should be in your
own voice (it should sound like you). You will report and document the pub¬
lished writers' words and ideas and comment upon them as you think ap¬
propriate. If you find disagreement among your sources, don't discard any of
them: the lack of agreement gives you a variety of views to report.

The Writing Process

The following sections will guide you through the stages of generating, plan¬
ning, drafting, and revising as you work on your essay. Try to be particularly
conscious of both the critical thinking you find in your sources and the criti¬
cal thinking you do about it.

Generating Ideas
■ Within whatever confines your instructor may have set, begin by find¬
ing an event that interests you and that you have wondered about. If
one comes to mind immediately, you can begin to research it. If not, be¬
gin by brainstorming a list of all the local and national events you can
remember from the last few years. Other good sources for events are
encyclopedia yearbooks and December ("The Year in Review") issues of
magazines. Then make a tentative choice.
■ Once you have chosen an event to research, you can use a variety of re¬
search techniques, depending on which are available and on your own
proficiency. Most libraries have computer indexes for newspapers and
periodicals as well as for books, which will enable you to generate a list
of articles related to your event. The Internet, if you know how to navi¬
gate it, offers you a world of information. Check any list of titles or sites
carefully, especially if it's long, for words indicating that articles deal
with the causes of the event: "causes, factors, results in, underlie, etc."
■ Locate or print the sources you identify, and read them carefully. First,
check to see that they do indeed discuss the causes of the event, not just
314 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

the event itself. Then see what causes they identify and how they label
them (contributory, interactive, etc.). If they do not label them, try to do
that yourself. Also, look for language that indicates the level of cer¬
tainty about these causes (/has been definitely identified as a cause," or
"may be partially responsible").
■ Mark sections of the source you will include (of course, you can do this
only if you own the source or have made a photocopy). If you are re¬
quired to do so, make notecards based on the marked sections.
■ Think about how much information you have. Do you need more? If so,
continue researching, reading, and marking until you have enough to
answer the question "Why did this event take place?"

Defining a Focus
Write a thesis statement that will make clear to your audience that you are go¬
ing to analyze why the event occurred. There are at least two possible ways to
frame this type of thesis. The first is simply to report what your sources say.
If your sources are in agreement and present some degree of certainty, you
can simply state this. If your sources disagree, you can state that as your the¬
sis; if your sources were less than certain about the causes, you can include
that as well. A second type of thesis involves one more level of thinking on
your part: if you want or are required to take a position on the causal rela¬
tionships involved, this position should be included in your thesis statement;
for example, "Having read four sources dealing with the causes of this event
I agree with three of them but reject a theory proposed in the fourth." Your
instructor should be able to offer you additional advice about what focus to
take.

Organizing Ideas
If you made notecards, read through them two or three times. Then spread
them all out on a table or desk so that you can see all of them at once. Begin
to group them into stacks: one stack to describe the event and one for each
cause mentioned. Ideally, this will help you to integrate material from your
different sources into various parts of your essay. You may find that you have
a few notecards that you decide not to use; this often happens and indicates
that you have done a good job in finding sufficient information. If you dis¬
cover that you don't have enough information, you can do more research.
If you didn t make notecards, spread your marked sources out and try to
plan how you will use information from each.
Review the principles for writing an essay of causal analysis on pages
312-313 of this chapter. In addition, you will need to decide on the order of
your body paragraphs. For a causal chain, you will probably want chrono¬
logical order. For contributory causes, you may want to use climactic (least to
 The Writing Process 315

most important) order. For interactive causes, you may want to try different
orders until you discover which will make the interaction of the causes easi¬
est for your audience to understand.
• /•

Drafting
If you have notecards in stacks, you can draft one section from each stack. A
highly specific description of the event whose causes you are about to ana¬
lyze could become the introduction. Quotations from eyewitnesses or partic¬
ipants in the event can help to interest the reader. The introduction can
conclude with the tentative focus sentence (thesis statement) you have writ¬
ten.
Clearly introduce each cause. If you have several causes and are devot¬
ing one paragraph to each, begin each body paragraph with a topic sentence
that names the cause or possible cause being discussed. Then provide the au¬
dience with as much information as necessary to help them understand how
that cause actually brought about the event. Remember to document all quo¬
tations and paraphrases from your sources.
In your conclusion, you can summarize the causes and discuss the level
of certainty, or uncertainty, about them. If you found considerable disagree¬
ment among your sources, you can comment on that. If research is still on¬
going about the causes, you can say so. You can, of course, do more than this
in your conclusion, depending on your content. A well-chosen quotation
from a source is often an effective last sentence.
On a separate page, draft a list of Works Cited, using the format specified
by your instructor.

Revising
Ideally, at this point, you should put your draft aside for a day or two. If
deadlines won't permit you to do that, then at least take a break before you
try to revise. When you are ready to "re-see" your writing, begin by reading
it through slowly, preferably aloud. If possible, have someone whose opinion
you respect read it; ask for feedback. Then work through the hierarchy of re¬
vision concerns that follows. Remember that you have two decisions to make
for each question: (1) Where is improvement needed? and (2) If improvement
is needed, how, exactly, can I make my draft better?

1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.

■ Does it fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ Is the organization logical?
■ Do you provide enough evidence?
 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

■ Is your point of view consistent?

■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs?
■ Have you documented information from your sources accurately?
■ Have you used quotation marks around direct quotes or set the quotes off
by indenting?
2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.
■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
■ Is the introduction appropriate for the rest of the draft?
■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a "visible" structure?
■ If you are working with an "invisible" structure, is your focus clearly im¬
plied?
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
■ Does each body paragraph develop a different idea?
■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Is your conclusion effective?
3. Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.
■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
■ Are sentences with blended quotations (that is, quotations that are inte¬
grated into the syntax of the sentence instead of introduced with "He
said ... or "She said ...") complete and easy to read?
■ Are quotations shortened with ellipsis marks accurate and readable?
■ Are there several choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Are any sentences vague?
■ Do any sentences need to be corrected for standard English grammar and
usage?
4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.
■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are any words misspelled?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
■ Does your paper make a good impression by being neat?
■ Is there anything else you could do to improve your draft?

Proofreading
After you prepare a final draft, check again for correct grammar and punctu¬
ation. Proofread carefully for omitted words or punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread carefully
for the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.
Check your list of Works Cited against your model once more, paying
special attention to indentation, use of underlining and quotation marks for
titles, and special use of punctuation.
 Student Writing 317

Student Essays
The following essays show how two students responded to this assignment.

STUDENT WRITING
Crows at the Mall
by Ly True Hoang

I am a newcomer to the United States. Amazingly, a bird which I saw

on my first day in this country was a crow. I wondered if in America
crows are common birds. Now I know that there are thousands of
crows which live around my city. Recently, some of these crows have
caused concern because they have moved into the trees at White Flint
Mall, a large, upscale shopping center.
In The Washington Post, an article by reporter Alona Wartofsky has
a photo of crows with this caption: "Ruling the roost: Crows are mak¬
ing their presence known and felt at White Flint Mall" (D1). Because
people are upset about too many crows at the mall, Wartofsky reports
the people tend "to use words like ‘eradicate’ and ‘terminate’" (D8).
Why have the crows appeared at White Flint Mall? After reading some
articles, I think I can answer this question. Missing the trees in
Rockville, seeking spaces to live, and looking for food are some
causes that many experts discuss about the crows' taking up resi¬
dence in the mall parking lot.
First of all, missing the trees in Rockville is a cause for the crows to
immigrate to White Flint. Wartofsky believes, “As many as 200,000
crows spent fall and winter around the intersection of Montrose Road
and East Jefferson Drive in Rockville. But last November, developers
cut down many of the trees there, and most of the birds have moved
on" (D1). This is consistent with a national trend. Crows ‘‘[have] suf¬
fered huge losses in recent decades from disease, predation, logging,
and development" (Kelly 107). Since the traditional habitats of crows
are being destroyed by development, the birds are increasingly find¬
ing new homes. Moreover, Miller observes that “they must rapidly
search for new habitat and shelter when critical habitats are dis¬
turbed" (32).
Thus, seeking a new place to live is a cause for the crows’ coming
to White Flint. In "Birds Need Open Space," Miller indicates, “Birds
have tried to adapt and seek new shelters and places ... as our hu¬
man encroachment continues to grow" (32). They choose places that
provide an appropriate habitat for nesting and for spending the win¬
ter. Some species, such as crows, prefer to spend the winter in large
 318 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

colonies. “Colonial roosts afford individual crows several advantages,

primarily greater awareness of predators, such as owls and hawks"
(Wartofsky D8). The same article quotes Audubon Naturalist Society's
Mark Garland, who told Wartofsky that "many birds packed together
can actually raise the ambient temperature of a particular area" (D8).
In the case of White Flint, the displaced crows did not have to go far
from their old location; White Flint was only a few blocks away from
their old trees.
A good food supply was another cause for the crows’ choice of
White Flint. Many experts agree that birds' movements are typically
motivated by food. In National Wildlife, Les Line states, "Migration is
the avian solution to the problem of a disappearing food supply"
(54). Crows are among the most intelligent and adaptable of birds.
The crow is a flexible omnivore," says Pete Budo, a reporter for The
New York Times (8:9). Therefore, their food includes garbage as well
as eggs and nestlings, small animals, vegetables, and carrion. And, like
parking lots in malls all across the country, the lot at White Flint has
food dropped by shoppers, trash receptacles, and the small animal
life which trash attracts.
For all these reasons, thousands of crows enjoy spending the win¬
ter in the White Flint parking lot; that has become a serious problem
for this mall. The crows are noisy, and their droppings fall on cars,
sidewalks, bushes, benches, and sometimes shoppers.
Human beings intervene in natural environments, perhaps only
slightly and with good intentions. However, the results are unforeseen
and unwanted effects, like the crows at the mall.

Works Cited
Bodo, Pete. "The Cunning, Resourceful Crow Doesn't Deserve Its Bad Rap."
The New York Times, 21 Jan. 1996: 8:9.
Kelly, Mary Sidney. "A Crow's Last Stand." Audubon, Sept. 1996:107.
Line, Les. "Staying the Winter." National Wildlife, Feb. 1995: 52-59
Miller, David. "Birds Need Open Space." New York State Conservationist, Aug
1996:32.
Wartofsky, Alona. "Caws for Concern at White Flint." The Washington Post 2
Apr. 1997: D1+. 6

STUDENT WRITING
What Caused the Flood at Yosemite National Park
by Elmon L. Burton IV

“Heavy snowpack in the high Sierras was melted on New Year's Eve by
the arrival of the 'Pineapple Express,’ a warm moist storm that blew
 Student Writing 319

onto the mountains from Hawaii, dropping rain and raising tempera¬
tures above 37 degrees at 10,000 feet" (Booth A1). The result: a
record breaking flood which swept through Yosemite National Park
destroying everything in its path. Newspaper accounts say that park
officials had no choice but to close access to most of the park for
several months (Brooke 5:3). When all was done "the New Year’s flood
caused an estimated $178 million in damage" (Booth A1). The amount
of snowfall that was present at Yosemite and the arrival of the Pineap¬
ple Express are the two contributory causes of this flood that I will
discuss.
The first contributory cause of the flood was the massive amount
of snow which laid upon the mountains within Yosemite National Park.
This is nothing out of the ordinary, however. The book Floods says that
each year the western mountain regions receive over 60 inches of pre¬
cipitation in the form of snow, and sometimes snowfall accumulates
to over 200 inches (Hoyt and Langbein 28). In fact, says Floods, each
spring the Merced River rises above its average height as a result of
the enormous amount of snowmelt; and "... many northern and high
mountainous areas have deep snow every year without floods be¬
cause the thaw begins slowly with the onset of spring, and snow
cover is fairly depleted before high temperatures occur" (Hoyt and
Langbein 28). However, the 1997 flood took place January 1, at the
early part of winter. This was obviously a rare occurrence, leaving the
residents in a complete state of bewilderment. According to William
G. Hoyt and Walter B. Langbein, the authors of Floods:

It’s important to note that snowmelt is only a contributor to winter

floods, . . . which are primarily caused by heavy rains. Snow sets the
stage, but seldom causes serious floods by itself. Even the most rapid
rate of snowmelt is only equal to a moderate rain. (29)

Also, scientists point out that the amount of snow and the rate at
which it melts are important factors contributing to the severity of
snowmelt floods (Ward 28). Further, when rain is added to the equa¬
tion, it magnifies the rate of snowmelt which could increase the river
by ten times its usual size (Flood 236). The result: total devastation to
everything in its path. Such was the case when the Merced River,
within Yosemite National Park, flooded.
The Pineapple Express, the second contributory cause of the
flood, was a warm tropical storm when it originated off the Pacific
Ocean, hundreds of miles away near the Hawaiian Islands. The Wash-
inston'Post reported that the storm followed the atmosphere’s jet
stream which carried it east towards the coast of California. Then,
upon the storm’s arrival, California experienced a period of heavy
rains and extremely mild temperatures. Although the Yosemite region
was not hit directly by this unusual storm, it definitely felt the effects.
320 Chapter 8 Exploring Causal Relationships—Writing to Analyze Causes

The result was an incredible rate of snowmelt along the Sierra moun¬
tain range. The most cataclysmic results took place near and along the
rising Merced River within Yosemite. Park officials are calling it "the
cruelest winter on record" (Booth A1).
The abundant amount of snowfall in the high Sierras, the heavy
amount of rain that fell, and the extended period of mild tempera¬
tures supported and reinforced the actions of one another, creating a
synergistic effect. While no one contributor would have caused such a
devastating outcome, when working in conjunction with each other
they created a force greater than the sum of their individual effects,
thus creating a rare, yet horrific natural disaster.

Works Cited
Booth, William. "Floods Brought Yosemite the Break of the Century." The
Washington Post, 7 Mar. 1997, sec. A1+.
Brooke, James. "Flood Damage Closes Much of Yosemite Valley." The New
York Times, 2 Feb. 1997, sec. 5:3.
"Flood." The World Book Encyclopedia, 1992.
Floyt, William G., and Walter B. Langbein. Floods. Princeton: Princeton Uni¬
versity Press, 1955.
Ward, Roy. Floods: A Geographical Perspective. New York: Roy Ward, 1978.
 CHAPTER 9

Forming Concepts—Writing to
Classify and Define

Critical Thinking Focus: The conceptualizing process

Writing Focus: Defining and applying concepts
Reading Theme: Gender issues
Writing Project: Defining an important concept

Thinking Critically About Concepts

Music video, person, education, computer, sport, situation comedy, and thinking are
only a few examples of concepts in a world filled with them. As you repre¬
sent and describe your experience, you refer to concepts you have formed.
Your academic study involves learning new concepts as well, and being suc¬
cessful in college and in your career requires understanding the conceptual¬
izing process. For example, when you read textbooks or listen to lectures and
take notes, you have to grasp key concepts and follow them as they are de¬
veloped and supported. Many course examinations involve applying the key
concepts you have learned to new sets of circumstances. When you write pa¬
pers, you are usually expected to focus on certain concepts, develop a thesis
around them, present the thesis (itself a concept) with carefully argued
points, and back it up with specific evidence.
Your college writing will often require the defining of terms or concepts.
Chapter 5 briefly discussed the fact that words are complex carriers of mean¬
ing—with meanings varying from person to person—and stated that people
arrive at semantic meanings, perceptual meanings, syntactic meanings, and prag¬
matic meanings through different experiences with a word. This chapter will
explore further implications of these vital communication issues. In addition,

321
322 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

you will see that definition usually involves using all the patterns of thinking
that the previous chapters in Part Two have discussed.
Definition involves a very important thinking and writing pattern. The
analytical activity of classifying, which underlies defining, also is essential to
good thinking. Defining and classifying rely on comparative relationships
in order to establish categories by means of similarities and in order to
distinguish among concepts within categories by identifying differences.
Definitions usually include descriptions and sometimes employ causal,
chronological, or process analyses to make distinctions or show the develop¬
ment of a concept. Understanding the common patterns that you have al¬
ready worked with and being able to use them effectively can ease the
difficult task of defining concepts.
To help you define significant concepts, this chapter will explain the con¬
ceptualizing process, present readings that involve definitions, and give you
opportunities to define some terms that are significant in various aspects of
your life.

What Are Concepts?

Concepts are general ideas you use to organize your experience and, in so do¬
ing, bring order to your life. In the same way that words are the vocabulary
of language, concepts are the vocabulary of thought. As organizers of your
experience, concepts work in conjunction with language to identify, describe,
distinguish, and relate all the various aspects of your world.

Concepts: general ideas that people use to identify and organize

experience.

To become a sophisticated thinker, you must develop expertise in the

conceptualizing process, thereby improving your ability to form, apply, and
relate concepts. This complex conceptualizing process is going on all the time
in your mind, enabling you to think in a distinctly human way. When you
form opinions or make judgments, you are applying and relating concepts.
How do you use concepts to organize and make sense of experience?
Think back to the first day of the semester. For most students, this is a time to
evaluate their courses by trying to determine which concepts apply.

■ Will this course be interesting? useful? challenging?

■ Is the instructor stimulating? demanding? understanding?
■ Are the other students friendly? intelligent? conscientious?

Each of these descriptive words or phrases represents a concept you are at¬
tempting to apply so that you can understand what is occurring at the mo¬
ment and also anticipate what will occur. As the course progresses, you
 Thinking Critically About Concepts 323

gather further information from experiences in class. This information may

support your initial concepts, or it may conflict with them. If it supports
them, you tend to maintain them ("Yes, I can see that this is going to be a dif¬
ficult course"). When the information you receive conflicts with your initial
concepts, you tend to find new concepts to explain the situation ("No, I can
see that I was wrong—this course isn't going to be as difficult as I thought
at first"). A diagram of this process might look something like the one in Fig¬
ure 9.1.
Throughout this thinking process, as you can see, you are making judg¬
ments that establish classifications of kinds or types: What kind of course—
difficult? easy? What kind of teacher? What kind of reading? What kind of
student am I in relation to this course? And you are consciously or uncon¬
sciously using definitions that you have formulated: When I say difficult

Experience: Attending the first day of class

i
leads to

I
Applying a concept to explain the situation: This course will be very difficult and
I might not do very well.

I
leads to

I
Looking for information to support or conflict with our concept.
/ \
Supporting Information: Conflicting Information:

The teacher is very demanding. I find that I am able to keep up with

the work.
There are lots of writing
assignments. I
leads to
The reading is challenging.
i
Forming a new concept to explain the
situation: This course is difficult, but I will
be able to handle the work and do well.

I
leads to
action

Figure 9.1
324 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

course, I mean one that... When I say demanding teacher, I mean one who ...
And so on.
For another example, imagine that you are a physician and one of your
patients comes to you complaining of shortness of breath and occasional pain
in his left arm. After he describes his symptoms, you will ask a number
of questions, examine him, and perhaps order some tests. Your ability to
diagnose the underlying problem depends on your knowledge of various
human diseases. Each disease is identified and described by a different con¬
cept. Identifying these various diseases means that you can distinguish dif¬
ferent concepts and that you know in which situations to apply a given
concept correctly. In addition, when the patient asks, "What's wrong with
me, doctor?" you are able to describe the overall concept (for example, heart
disease) and explain how it is revealed by his symptoms. Fortunately, mod¬
ern medicine has developed (and is continuing to develop) remarkably pre¬
cise concepts to describe and explain diseases. In the patient's case, you may
conclude that the problem is heart disease. Of course, there are different
kinds of heart disease, represented by different concepts, and success in treat¬
ing the patient will depend on figuring out exactly which type of disease is
involved.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 9.1

Chansing Concepts
Identify an initial concept you had about an event in your life (a new job, at¬
tending college, getting married, etc.). After identifying your initial concept,
describe in your journal the experiences that led you to change or modify the
concept; then explain the new concept you formed to explain the situation.
Your response should include the following elements.
■ Initial concept
■ New information provided by additional experiences
■ New concept formed to explain the situation

The Importance of Concepts

Learning to understand concepts will help you in every area of your life: aca¬
demic, career, and personal. In college study, each academic discipline or
subject is composed of many different concepts that are used to organize
experience, give explanations, and solve problems. Here is a sampling of
college-level concepts: entropy, subtext, Gemeinschaft, cell, metaphysics, relativ¬
ity, unconscious, transformational grammar, aesthetic, minor key, interface, health,
quantum mechanics, schizophrenia. To make sense of how disciplines function,
you need to understand what the concepts of that discipline mean, how to
 The Structure of Concepts 325

define them, how to apply them, and how they relate to other concepts. You
also need to learn the methods of investigation, patterns of thought, and
forms of reasoning that various disciplines use to form larger conceptual the¬
ories and methods.
Regardless of their specific knowledge content, all careers require con¬
ceptual abilities, whether you are trying to apply a legal principle, develop a
promotional theme, or devise a new computer program. Similarly, expertise
in forming and applying concepts helps you to make sense of your personal
life, understand others, and make informed decisions. It was the Greek
philosopher Aristotle who said that the intelligent person is a "master of con¬
cepts."

The Structure of Concepts

Concepts, in addition to being general ideas you use to identify and organize
your experience, are useful for distinguishing and relating the various as¬
pects of experience. Concepts allow you to organize your world into patterns
that make sense to you. This is the process by which you discover and create
meaning in your life.
In their role of organizers of experience, concepts act to group aspects
of your experience on the basis of those aspects' similarity. Consider the
item that you usually write with: a pen. The concept pen represents a type
of object that you use for writing. Now look around the classroom at other
instruments people are using to write. You use the concept pen to identify
these as well, even though they may look very different from the one you are
using. Thus, the concept pen not only helps you to make distinctions in your
experience by indicating how pens differ from pencils, crayons, or markers;
it also helps you to determine which items are similar enough to one another
to be called pens. When you put items into a group with a single descrip¬
tion—such as "pen"—you are focusing on their similarities:

■ They use ink.

■ They are used for writing.
■ They are held in one hand.

Being able to see and name the similarities between certain things in your ex¬
perience is the way you form concepts and is crucial for making sense of your
world. If you were not able to do this, everything in the world would be dif¬
ferent, with its own individual name.

The Process of Classifying

The process by which you group things on the basis of their similarities is
known as classifying. Classifying is a natural human activity that goes on all
326 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

the time. In most cases, however, you are not conscious that you are classify¬
ing something in a particular sort of way; you do so automatically. The
process of classifying is one of the main ways that you order, organize, and
make sense of your world. Because no two things or experiences are exactly
alike, your ability to classify things into various groups is what enables you
to recognize things in your experience. When you perceive a pen, you recog¬
nize it as a kind of object you have seen before. Even though you may not have
seen this particular pen, you recognize that it belongs to a group of things
that you are familiar with.
The best way to understand the structure of concepts is to visualize them
by means of a model. Examine Figure 9.2. The sign is the word or symbol
used to name or designate the concept; for example, the word triangle is a
sign. The referents represent all the various examples of the concept; the three-
sided figure we are using as our model is an example of the concept triangle.
The properties of the concept are the features that all things named by the
word or sign share in common; all examples of the concept triangle share the
characteristics of being a polygon and having three sides. These are the prop¬
erties that we refer to when we define concepts; thus, "A triangle is a three-
sided polygon."

PROPERTIES
(Qualities that all examples of
the concept share in common)

(Word/symbol that (Examples of

names the concept) the concept)

Figure 9.2

Let's take another example. Suppose you wanted to explore the structure
of the concept automobile. The sign that names the concept is the word auto¬
mobile or the symbol . Referents of the concept include the 1954 MG "TF"
currently residing in the garage, as well as the Ford Explorer parked in front
of the house. The properties that all things named by the sign automobile in¬
clude are wheels, a chassis, an engine, seats for passengers, and so on. Figure
9.3 shows a conceptual model of the concept automobile.
 Forming Concepts 327

PROPERTIES
Wheels, Chassis, Engine,
Seats for passengers

SIGN REFERENTS
"Automobile" 1954 MG-TF
./T~V. Dodge Ramcharger
lo—&

Figure 9.3

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 9.2

Diagramming Concepts
Using the model we have developed, diagram the structure of the following
concepts, as well as those of two concepts of your own choosing: dance, suc¬
cessful, student, religion, music, friend.

Forming Concepts
Throughout your life you are engaged in the process of forming—and ap¬
plying—concepts to organize your experience, make sense of what is hap¬
pening at the moment, and anticipate what may happen in the future. You
form concepts by the interactive processes of generalizing (focusing on the
common properties shared by a group of things) and interpreting (finding ex¬
amples of the concept). The common properties form the necessary require¬
ments that must be met in order for you to be able to apply the concept to
your experience. If you examine the diagrams of concepts in the last section,
you can see that the process of forming concepts involves moving back and
forth between the referents (examples) of the concept and the properties (com¬
mon features) shared by all examples of the concept. Let's explore further the
way this interactive process of forming concepts operates.
Consider the following sample conversation between two people trying
to form and clarify the concept philosophy.
328 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

A: What is your idea of what philosophy means?

B: Well, I think philosophy involves expressing important beliefs that you
have—like discussing the meaning of life, assuming that there is a meaning.
A: Is explaining my belief about who's going to win the Super Bowl engag¬
ing in philosophy? After all, this is a belief that is very important to me—
I've got a lot of money riding on the outcome!
B: I don't think so. A philosophical belief is usually a belief about something
that is important to everyone—like what standards we should use to
guide our moral choices .
A: What about the message that was in my fortune cookie last night: "Eat,
drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet!"? This is certainly a belief that
most people can relate to, especially during a holiday season! Is this phi¬
losophy?
B: I think that's what my grandmother used to call "foolosophy"! Philo¬
sophical beliefs are usually deeply felt views that we have given a great
deal of thought to—not something plucked out of a cookie.
A: What about my belief in the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you," because if you don't, "What goes around comes
around." Doesn't that have all of the qualities that you mentioned?
B: Now you've got it!

As we review this dialogue, we can see that forming the concept philo¬
sophical belief works hand in hand with applying the concept to different ex¬
amples. When two or more things work together in this way, we say that they
interact, hi this case, there are two parts of this interactive process.
We form concepts by generalizing, by focusing on the similar features
among different things, hi the dialogue just given, the things from which gen¬
eralizations are being made are types of beliefs—beliefs about the meaning of
life or about standards we use to guide our moral choices. By focusing on the
similar features among these beliefs, the two participants in the dialogue de¬
velop a list of properties philosophical beliefs share, including (1) beliefs
dealing with important issues in life that everyone is concerned about and (2)
beliefs reflecting deeply felt views—views to which we have given a great
deal of thought. These common properties act as the requirements an area
must meet to be considered a philosophical belief.
We apply concepts by interpreting, by looking for different examples of a
concept and seeing if they meet the requirements of the concept we are de¬
veloping. In the preceding dialogue, one participant attempts to apply the
concept philosophical belief to the following examples:

a belief about the outcome of the Super Bowl

a fortune cookie message: "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet."

Each of the proposed examples in the dialogue suggests the development of

new requirements for the concept to help clarify how the concept can be
 Forming Concepts 329

applied. Applying a concept to different possible examples thus becomes the

way we develop and gradually sharpen our idea of it. Even when a proposed
example turns out not to be a valid one, our understanding of that concept is
often clarified. For instance, although the proposed example of a belief about
the outcome of the Super Bowl turned out not to be an example of the concept
philosophical belief, examining it helped to clarify the concept and suggest
other examples.
The process of developing concepts involves a constant back-and-forth
movement between these two activities:

Generalizing: Focusing on certain similar features among things to de¬

velop the requirements for the concept.
Interpreting: Looking for different things to apply the concept to, in or¬
der to determine whether they "meet the requirements"
of the concept one is developing.

As the back-and-forth movement progresses, we gradually develop a list of

specific requirements for an example of the concept; at the same time, we give
ourselves a clearer idea of how the concept is defined. We are also develop¬
ing a collection of examples that embody the qualities of the concept and
demonstrate situations in which the concept applies. This interactive process
is illustrated in Figure 9.4.

SHARP, CLEAR,
WELL-DEFINED
CONCEPT

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 9.3

Forming a Concept
Select a type of music with which you are familiar (e.g., jazz) and write a dia¬
logue similar to the one just examined. In the course of the dialogue, be sure
to include the following:
1. Examples from which you are generalizing (such as big band).
2. General properties shared by various types of this music (e.g., the jazz au¬
dience spans many generations).
3. Examples to which you are trying to apply the developing concept (such as
the music of Marian McPartland, Miles Davis, or Thelonius Monk).
330 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

Forming concepts involves performing the operations of generalizing

and interpreting together, for two reasons.

1. You cannot form a concept unless you know how it might apply. If you
have absolutely no idea what jazz or philosophy might exemplify, you can¬
not begin to form the concept, even in vague or general terms.
2. You cannot gather examples of the concept unless you know what they
might be examples of. Until you begin to develop some idea of what the
concepts, jazz or philosophy might be (based on certain similarities between
various things) you won't know where to look for examples of the concept
(or how to evaluate them).

This interactive process is the way that you usually form all concepts,
particularly the complicated ones. In school, much of your education is
focused on carefully forming and exploring key concepts such as democracy,
dynamic equilibrium, and personality. This book, too, has focused on key con¬
cepts, such as thinking critically, writing effectively, solving problems, revising
drafts, perceiving, thinking creatively, and language. In each case, you have care¬
fully explored these concepts through the interactive process of generalizing
the properties or requirements of the concept and interpreting the concept by
examining examples to which the concept applies.

Applying Concepts
Making sense of our experience means finding the right concept to explain
what is going on. To determine whether the concept we have selected fits a
situation, we have to determine whether the requirements that form the con¬
cept are being met. For example, episodes of the original radio series "Su¬
perman" used to begin with the words "Faster than a speeding bullet—more
powerful than a locomotive. Look—up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's
Superman!"
To figure out which concept applies to the situation (so that we can fig¬
ure out what is going on), we must do the following:

1. Be aware of the properties that form the boundaries of the concept.

2. Determine whether the experience meets those requirements, for only if it
does can we apply the concept to it.

In the opening lines from "Superman," what are some of the requirements for
using the concepts being identified?

■ Bird:
■ Plane:
■ Superman:

If we have the requirements of the concept clearly in mind, we can proceed

to figure out which of these requirements are met by the experience_
 Applying Concepts 331

whether it is a bird, a plane, or the "man of steel" himself. This is the way we
apply concepts, which is one of the most important ways we figure out what
is taking place in our experience.

Determining the Requirements of a Concept

In determining exactly what the requirements of the concept are, we can ask
ourselves: Would something still he an example of this concept if that thing did not
meet this requirement? If the answer to this question is no—that something
would not be an example of this concept if it did not meet this requirement—
we can say the requirement is a necessary part of the concept.
Consider the concept dog. Which of the following descriptions are re¬
quirements that must be met by an example of this concept?

1. Is an animal
2. Normally has four legs and a tail
3. Bites the mail carrier

It is clear that descriptions 1 and 2 are requirements that must be met to apply
the concept dog, because if we apply our test question—"Would something
be an example of this concept if that thing did not meet this requirement?"—
we can say that something would not be an example of the concept dog if it
did not fit the first two descriptions: if it was not an animal and did not nor¬
mally have four legs and a tail.
This does not seem to be the case, however, with description 3. If we
ask ourselves the same test question, we can see that something might still be
an example of the concept dog even if it did not bite the mail carrier. Even
though some dogs do in fact bite mail carriers, this is not a requirement for be¬
ing a dog.
Of course, there may be other things that meet these requirements but are
not dogs. For example, a cat is an animal (description 1) that normally has
four legs and a tail (description 2). What this means is that the requirements
of a concept tell us only what something must have, to be an example of the
concept. As a result, we often have to identify additional requirements that
will define the concept more sharply. This point is clearly illustrated as chil¬
dren form concepts. Not identifying a sufficient number of the concept's re¬
quirements leads to such misconceptions as "All four-legged animals are
doggies" or "All yellow-colored metal is gold."
This is why it is so important for us to have a very clear idea of the great¬
est possible number of specific requirements of each concept. These require¬
ments determine when the concept can be applied and indicate those things
that qualify as examples of it. When we are able to identify all the require¬
ments of the concept, we say these requirements are both necessary and suf¬
ficient for applying the concept.
332 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

Analyzing Complex Concepts

Although dealing with concepts like dog and cat may seem straightforward,
matters become somewhat confusing when you start analyzing the more
complex concepts you encounter in your academic study For example, con¬
sider the concepts of masculinity and femininity, two of the more emotionally
charged and politically contentious concepts in our culture. There are many
different perspectives on what these concepts mean, what they should mean,
or whether we should be using them at all. Identify what you consider the es¬
sential properties (specific requirements that must be met to apply the con¬
cept) for each of these concepts, as well as examples of people or behavior
that illustrates these properties. For example, you might identify physical
strength as a property of the concept masculinity, and identify Arnold
Swartzenegger as a person who illustrates this quality. Or you might identify
intuition as a property of the concept femininity, illustrating this with the be¬
havior "knowing without the conscious use of rational processes."

General Properties Specific Examples

Femininity

1 -l_
2 -2_
3-3._

Masculinity

1-1_
2-2_
3-3_

Compare your responses with those of other students in the class. What sim¬
ilarities and differences do you discover? What factors might account for
these similarities and differences? Look back at your responses after you read
the following selections.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 9.4

Exploring the Concept Femininity

Read the following passage by Susan Brownmiller. Then write answers to the
questions in your journal.

1. According to Brownmiller, what are some of the properties of femininity?

What are some examples that she gives of the properties that she identifies?
2. Do you agree with the conceptual properties that Brownmiller has identi¬
fied? Explain why or why not? Do you think that she has defined femininity?
Explain how she has achieved a definition.
 Applying Concepts 333

3. What thinkins-writing patterns has Brownmiller used? Identify specific ex¬

amples.

from Femininity
by Susan Brownmiller

We had a game in our house called "setting the table" and I was
Mother's helper. Forks to the left of the plate, knives and spoons to the
right. Placing the cutlery neatly, as I recall, was one of my first duties,
and the event was alive with meaning. When a knife or a fork dropped
on the floor, that meant a man was unexpectedly coming to dinner. A
falling spoon announced the surprise arrival of a female guest. No mat¬
ter that these visitors never arrived on cue, I had learned a rule of gen¬
der identification. Men were straight-edged, sharply pronged and
formidable; women were softly curved and held the food in a rounded
well. It made perfect sense, like the division of pink and blue that I saw
in babies, an orderly way of viewing the world . Daddy, who was gone
all day at work and who loved to putter at home with his pipe, tobacco
and tool chest was knife and fork. Mommy and Grandma, with their
ample proportions and pots and pans, were grownup soup spoons,
large and capacious. And I was a teaspoon, small and slender, easy to
hold and just right for pudding, my favorite dessert.
Being good at what was expected of me was one of my earliest
projects, for not only was I rewarded, as most children are, for doing
things right, but excellence gave pride and stability to my childhood
existence. Girls were different from boys, and the expression of that dif¬
ference seemed mine to make clear. Did my loving, anxious mother,
who dressed me in white organdy pinafores and Mary Janes and who
cried hot tears when I got them dirty, give me my first instruction? Of
course. Did my doting aunts and uncles with their gifts of pretty dolls
and miniature tea sets add to my education? Of course. But even with¬
out the appropriate toys and clothes, lessons in the art of being feminine
lay all around me and I absorbed them all: the fairy tales that were read
to me at night, the brightly colored advertisements I pored over in mag¬
azines before I learned to decipher the words, the movies I saw, the
comic books I hoarded, the radio soap operas I happily followed when¬
ever I had to stay in bed with a cold. I loved being a little girl, or rather
I loved being a fairy princess, for that was who I thought I was.
As I passed through a stormy adolescence to a stormy maturity, fem¬
ininity increasingly became an exasperation, a brilliant, subtle esthetic
that was bafflingly inconsistent at the same time that it was minutely,
demandingly concrete, a rigid code of appearance and behavior de-
334 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

fined by do's and don't-do's that went against my rebellious grain.

Femininity was a challenge thrown down to the female sex, a challenge
no proud, self-respecting young woman could afford to ignore, partic¬
ularly one with enormous ambition that she nursed in secret, alter¬
nately feeding or starving its inchoate life in tremendous confusion.
'Don't lose your femininity" and "Isn't it remarkable how she man¬
ages to retain her femininity?" had terrifying implications. They spoke
of a bottom-line failure so irreversible that nothing else mattered. The
pinball machine had registered "tilt," the game had been called. Dis¬
qualification was marked on the forehead of a woman whose feminin¬
ity was lost. No records would be entered in her name, for she had
destroyed her birthright in her wretched, ungainly effort to imitate a
man. She walked in limbo, this hapless creature, and it occurred to me
that one day I might see her when I looked in the mirror. If the danger
was so palpable that warning notices were freely posted, wasn't it pos¬
sible that the small bundle of resentments I carried around in secret
might spill out and place the mark on my own forehead? Whatever
quarrels with femininity I had I kept to myself; whatever handicaps
femininity imposed, they were mine to deal with alone, for there was no
women's movement to ask the tough questions, or to brazenly disre¬
gard the rules.
5 Femininity, in essence, is a romantic sentiment, a nostalgic tradition
of imposed limitations. Even as it hurries forward in the 1980s, putting
on lipstick and high heels to appear well dressed, it trips on the ruffled
petticoats and hoopskirts of an era gone by. Invariably and necessarily,
femininity is something that women had more of in the past, not only
in the historic past of prior generations, but in each woman's personal
past as well—in the virginal innocence that is replaced by knowledge,
in the dewy cheek that is coarsened by age, in the "inherent nature" that
a woman seems to misplace so forgetfully whenever she steps out of
bounds. Why should this be so? The XX chromosomal message has not
been scrambled, the estrogen-dominated hormonal balance is generally
as biology intended, the reproductive organs, whatever use one has
made of them, are usually in place, the breasts of whatever size are most
often where they should be. But clearly, biological femaleness is not
enough.
Femininity always demands more. It must constantly reassure its au¬
dience by a willing demonstration of difference, even when one does
not exist in nature, or it must seize and embrace a natural variation and
compose a rhapsodic symphony upon the notes. Suppose one doesn't
care to, has other things on her mind, is clumsy or tone-deaf despite the
best instruction and training? To fail at the feminine difference is to ap¬
pear not to care about men, and to risk the loss of their attention and ap¬
proval. To be insufficiently feminine is viewed as a failure in core sexual
identity, or as a failure to care sufficiently about oneself, for a woman
 Applying Concepts 335

found wanting will be appraised (and will appraise herself) as mannish

or neutered or simply unattractive, as men have defined these terms.
We are talking, admittedly, about an exquisite esthetic. Enormous
pleasure can be extracted from feminine pursuits as a creative outlet or
purely as relaxation; indeed, indulgence for the sake of fun, or art, or at¬
tention, is among femininity's great joys. But the chief attraction (and
the central paradox, as well) is. the competitive edge that femininity
seems to promise in the unending struggle to survive, and perhaps to
triumph. The world smiles favorably on the feminine woman: it ex¬
tends little courtesies and minor privilege. Yet the nature of this com¬
petitive edge is ironic, at best, for one works at femininity by accepting
restrictions, by limiting one's sights, by choosing an indirect route, by
scattering concentration and not giving one's all as a man would to his
own, certifiably masculine, interests. It does not require a great leap of
imagination for a woman to understand the feminine principle as a
grand collection of compromises, large and small, that she simply must
make in order to render herself a successful woman. If she has difficulty
in satisfying femininity's demands, if its illusions go against her grain,
or if she is criticized for her shortcomings and imperfections, the more
she will see femininity as a desperate strategy of appeasement, a strat¬
egy she may not have the wish or the courage to abandon, for failure
looms in either direction.
It is fashionable in some quarters to describe the feminine and mas¬
culine principles as polar ends of the human continuum, and to sagely
profess that both polarities exist in all people. Sun and moon, yin and
yang, soft and hard, active and passive, etcetera, may indeed be oppo¬
sites, but a linear continuum does not illuminate the problem. (Femi¬
ninity, in all its contrivances, is a very active endeavor.) What, then, is
the basic distinction? The masculine principle is better understood as a
driving ethos of superiority designed to inspire straightforward, confi¬
dent success, while the feminine principle is composed of vulnerability,
the need for protection, the formalities of compliance and the avoidance
of conflict—in short, an appeal of dependence and good will that gives
the masculine principle its romantic validity and its admiring applause.
Femininity pleases men because it makes them appear more mascu¬
line by contrast; and, in truth, conferring an extra portion of unearned
gender distinction on men, an unchallenged space in which to breathe
freely and feel stronger, wiser, more competent, is femininity's special
gift. One could say that masculinity is often an effort to please women,
but masculinity is known to please by displays of mastery and compe¬
tence while femininity pleases by suggesting that these concerns, except
in small matters, are beyond its intent. Whimsy, unpredictability and
patterns of thinking and behavior that are dominated by emotion, such
as tearful expressions of sentiment and fear, are thought to be feminine
precisely because they lie outside the established route to success.
336 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

10 If in the beginnings of history the feminine woman was defined by

her physical dependency, her inability for reasons of reproductive biol¬
ogy to triumph over the forces of nature that were the tests of masculine
strength and power, today she reflects both an economic and emotional
dependency that is still considered "natural," romantic and attractive.
After an unsettling fifteen years in which many basic assumptions
about the sexes were challenged, the economic disparity did not disap¬
pear. Large numbers of women—those with small children, those left
high and dry after a mid-life divorce—need financial support. But even
those who earn their own living share a universal need for connected¬
ness (call it love, if you wish). As unprecedented numbers of men aban¬
don their sexual interest in women, others, sensing opportunity, choose
to demonstrate their interest through variety and a change in partners.
A sociological fact of the 1980s is that female competition for two scarce
resources—men and jobs—is especially fierce.
So it is not surprising that we are currently witnessing a renewed in¬
terest in femininity and an unabashed indulgence in feminine pursuits.
Femininity serves to reassure men that women need them and care
about them enormously. By incorporating the decorative and the frivo¬
lous into its definition of style, femininity functions as an effective anti¬
dote to the unrelieved seriousness, the pressure of making one's way in
a harsh, difficult world. In its mandate to avoid direct confrontation and
to smooth over the fissures of conflict, femininity operates as a value
system of niceness, a code of thoughtfulness and sensitivity that in
modern society is sadly in short supply.
. There is no reason to deny that indulgence in the art of feminine il¬
lusion can be reassuring to a woman, if she happens to be good at it. As
sexuality undergoes some dizzying revisions, evidence that one is a
woman "at heart" (the inquisitor's question) is not without worth. Since
an answer of sorts may he furnished by piling on additional documen¬
tation, affirmation can arise from such identifiable but trivial feminine
activities as buying a new eyeliner, experimenting with the latest shade
of nail color, or bursting info tears at the outcome of a popular romance
novel. Is there anything destructive in this? Time and cost factors, a de¬
flection of energy and an absorption in fakery spring quickly to mind,
and they need to be balanced, as in a ledger book, against the affirming
advantage.

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 9.5

Exploring the Concept Masculinity

Read the following passage by Michael Norman and write answers to the ques¬
tions in your journal.
 Applying Concepts 337

1. According to Michael Norman, what are the properties of the concept mas¬
culinity? What are some examples he gives of the properties that he has
identified?
2. Do you agree with the properties that Norman has identified? Explain why
or why not. Does Norman achieve a definition of masculinity, or a partial
definition? What thinking-writing patterns has he used?
3. Some people believe that the concepts of masculinity and femininity were
formed by earlier cultures, are outdated in our current culture, and should
be revised. Other people believe that these concepts reflect essential qual¬
ities of the human species and should not be excessively tampered with.
Where do you stand on this issue?
4. Do you see connections with the concepts feminism/feminist and mas-
culism/masculinist and the concepts of femininity and masculinity? What are
some differences among these related concepts? Where does macho fit in?

from Standing His Ground

by Michael Norman

I have bruised a knuckle and bloodied another man's nose, but I am

not, by most measures, a fighter. The last time I broke the peace was
more than a decade ago in a small restaurant on the west slope of
the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. My stepfather had encountered an
old nemesis. Words were exchanged and the distance between the two
narrowed. I stepped in to play the peacemaker and ended up throwing
the first punch. For the record, my target, a towering 230-pound horse¬
man, easily absorbed the blow and then dispatched the gnat in front
of him.
The years since have been filled with discretion—I preach it, embrace
it and hide behind it. I am now the careful watchman who keeps his eye
on the red line and reroutes pressure before it has a chance to blow.
Sometimes, I backslide and turn a domestic misdemeanor into a capital
case or toss the cat out of the house without bothering to see where he
lands. But I do not punch holes in the plaster or call my antagonists to
the woodshed. The Furies may gather, but the storm always stays safely
out to sea. And yet, lately, I have been struggling with this forced equa¬
nimity. The messenger of reason, the advocate of accord, once again has
the urge to throw the first punch—in spirit at least.
All of this began rather quietly, a deep stirring that would come and
go and never take form, an old instinct, perhaps, trying to reassert itself.
I was angry, restless, combative, but I could not say why. It was a mys¬
tery of sorts. I was what I was expected to be, the very model of a mod¬
ern man, a partner instead of a husband, a proponent of peace over
action, thin-skinned rather than thick, a willow instead of a stone. And
yet there was something about this posture that did not fit my frame.
338 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

Then, an acquaintance, a gentle man who spent his Peace Corps days
among the villagers of Nepal, suddenly acted out of character. He got
into an argument with a local brute in a neighborhood tavern and in¬
stead of walking away from trouble, stood his ground. It was, he said,
a senseless confrontation, but he had no regrets, and it made me think
of Joey
Joey, the bully of the sixth grade, used to roam the hallways picking
victims at random and slugging them on the arm. When he rounded a
corner, we scattered or practiced a crude form of mysticism and tried to
think ourselves invisible in the face of the beast. Since I was slow and
an inept mystic, my mother kept on hand an adequate supply of Ben
Gay to ease the bruises and swelling.
5 One day, a boy named Tony told the marauder that he had had
enough and an epic duel was scheduled in the playground after school.
Tony had been taking boxing lessons on the sly. He had developed a
stinging left jab and when the appointed hour arrived, he delivered it in
the name of every bruised shoulder in the school.
The meek pack of which Tony was once a part took courage from his
example and several weeks later when a boy at my bus stop sent me
sprawling, I returned the favor.
There were only a few challenges after that. On the way up, a Joey
would occasionally round the corner. But in the circles I traveled, he
was the exception rather than the rule. In the Marine Corps in Vietnam,
we were consumed by a much larger kind of warfare. In college, faculty
infighting and bullying aside, violence was considered anti-intellectual.
And in the newsrooms where I have practiced my trade, reporters gen¬
erally have been satisfied with pounding a keyboard instead of their ed¬
itors.
And then came Colorado and the battle of the west slope. For years,
I was embarrassed by the affair. I could have walked away and dragged
my stepfather with me. As it was, we almost ended up in jail. I had pro¬
voked a common brawl, a pointless, self-destructive exercise. The ratio¬
nalist had committed the most irrational of acts. It was not a matter of
family or honor, hollow excuses. I had simply succumbed to instinct,
and I deeply regretted it. But not any longer. Now I see virtue in that
vulgar display of macho. It disqualifies me from the most popular male
club—the brotherhood of nurturers, fraternity sensitivus.
From analyst's couch to tavern booth, their message is the same: The
male animus is out of fashion. The man of the hour is supposed to be
gentle, thoughtful, endearing and compassionate, a wife to his woman,
a mother to his son, an androgynous figure with the self-knowledge of
a hermaphrodite. He takes his lumps on the psyche, not the chin, and
bleeds with emotion. Yes, in the morning, he still puts on a three-piece
suit, but his foulard, the finishing touch, is a crying towel.
10 He is so ridden with guilt, so pained about the sexist sins of his kind,
 Applying Concepts 339

he bites at his own flanks. Not only does he say that he dislikes being a
man, but broadly proclaims that the whole idea of manhood in Amer¬
ica is pitiful.
He wants to free himself from the social conditioning of the past, to
cast off the yoke of traditional male roles and rise above the banality of
rituals learned at boot camp or on the practice field. If science could pro¬
vide it, he would swallow an antidote of testosterone, something to stop
all this antediluvian thumping and bashing.
And he has gone too far. Yes, the male code needs reform. Our rules
and our proscriptions have trapped us in a kind of perpetual adoles¬
cence. Why else would a full-grown rationalist think he could get even
with Joey by taking a poke at another bully 25 years later in a bar in Col¬
orado? No doubt there is something pitiful about that.
But the fashion for reform, the drive to emasculate macho, has pro¬
duced a kind of numbing androgyny and has so blurred the lines of
gender that I often find myself wanting to emulate some of the women
I know—bold, aggressive, vigorous role models.
It sometimes seems that the only exclusively male trait left is the im¬
pulse to throw a punch, the last male watermark, so to speak, that is
clear and readable. Perhaps that is why the former Peace Corps volun¬
teer jumped into a brawl and why I suspect that the new man—the
model of sensitivity, the nurturer—goes quietly through the day with a
clenched fist behind his back.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 9.6

Explorins the Concept Woman

Read the following speech by Sojourner Truth, "Ain’t I a Woman?" Then write
the answers to the questions in your journal.
1. Understanding that Sojourner Truth was a famous black speaker in the
nineteenth-century abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements, can you
identify passages in her speech that pertain to those political issues?
2. Some people claim that some of the concerns addressed by present-day
gender studies are middle-class issues and are not relevant to less affluent
groups. Can you connect Sojourner Truth’s speech to this issue? Can you
identify some gender questions that seem specific to social classes?
340 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

from Ain't I a Woman?

by Sojourner Truth

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something

out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women
at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix
pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into car¬
riages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me
any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I
have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could
head me! And ain 11 a woman? I could work as much and eat as much
as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a
woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen them most all sold off
to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus
heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head: what's this they call it?
[Intellect, someone whispers.] That's it, honey. What's that got to do
with women's rights or negro's rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint,
and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my
little half-measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as
much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your
Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a
woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
5 If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the
world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to
turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do
it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got noth¬
ing more to say.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 9.7

Exploring the Concept of Friendship

Read the essay "Men and Their Hidden Feelinss," by Richard Cohen. Then write
the answers to the questions in your journal.

1. According to Cohen, what are the properties of men’s relationships? Why

does he think that these properties do not fit a definition of friendship?
2. Do you believe that talking about feelings is a good idea? If so, talking with
whom? under what circumstances? How important is such talk to friendship?
 Applying Concepts 341

from Men and Their Hidden Feelings

by Richard Cohen

My friends have no friends. They are men. They think they have
friends, and if you ask them whether they have friends they will say
yes, but they don't really. They think, for instance, that I'm their friend,
but I'm not. It's OK. They're not my friends either.
The reason for that is that we are all men—and men, I have come to
believe, cannot or will not have real friends. They have something
else—companions, buddies, pals, chums, someone to drink with and
someone to wench with and someone to lunch with, but no one when it
comes to saying how they feel—especially how they hurt.
Women know this. They talk about it among themselves. I heard one
woman describe men as the true Third World people—still not yet
emerged. To women, this inability of men to say what they feel is a
source of amazement and then anguish and then, finally, betrayal.
Women will tell you all the time that they don't know the men they live
with. They talk of long silences and drifting off and of keeping feelings
hidden and never letting on that they are troubled or bothered or what¬
ever.
If it's any comfort to women, they should know that it's nothing per¬
sonal. Men treat other men the same way.
For instance, I know men who have suffered brutal professional set¬
backs and never mentioned it to their friends. I know of a guy who
never told his best friend that his own son had a rare childhood disease.
And I know others who never have sex with their wives, but talk to
their friends as though they're living in the Playboy Mansion, either
pretending otherwise or saying nothing.
This is something men learn early. It is something I learned from
my father, who taught me, the way fathers teach sons, to keep my
emotions to myself. I watched him and learned from him. One day
we went to the baseball game, cheered and ate and drank, and the
next day he was taken to the hospital with yet another ulcer attack.
He had several of them. My mother said he worried a lot, but I saw none
of this.
Legend has it that men talk a lot about sex. They don't. They talk
about it only in the sense that it is treated like sports. They joke about
it and rate women from 1 to 10. But they almost never talk about it in a
way that matters—the quality of it. They almost never talk in real terms,
in terms other than a cartoon, in terms that apply to them and the
woman or women with whom they have a relationship.
Women do talk that way. Women talk about fulfillment, and they ad¬
mit—maybe complain is the better word—to nonexistent sex lives. No
man would admit to having virtually no sex life, yet there are plenty
who do.
342 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

When I was a kid, I believed that it was men who had real friend¬
ships and women who did not. This seemed to be the universal belief,
and boys would talk about this. We wondered about girls, about what
made them so catty that they could not have friendships, and we really
thought we were lucky to be men and have real friends.
10 We thought our friendships would last forever; we talked about
them in some sort of Three Musketeer fashion—all for one and one for
all. If one of us needed help, all of us would come running. We are still
good friends, some of us, anyway, and I still feel that I will fight for
them, but I don't think I could confide in them. No—not that.
Sometimes I think that men are walking relics—outmoded and out¬
dated, programmed for some other age. We have all the essential qual¬
ities for survival in the wild and for success in battle, but we rim like
hell from talking about our feelings. We are, as the poet said in a differ¬
ent context, truly a thing of wonder.
Some women say that they have always had this ability to confide in
one another—to talk freely. Others say that this is something relatively
new—yet another benefit of the women's movement. I don't know. All
I know is that they have it, and most men don't, and even the men who
do—the ones who can talk about how they feel—talk to women. Have
we been raised to think of feelings and sentiment as feminine? Can a
man talk intimately with another man and not wonder about his mas¬
culinity? I don't know. I do know it sometimes makes the other men feel
uncomfortable.
I know this is a subject that concerns me, and yet I find myself bot¬
tling it all up—keeping it all in. I've been on automatic pilot for years
now.
It would be nice to break out of it. It would be nice to join the rest of
the human race, connect with others in a way that makes sense, in a
way that's meaningful—in a way that's more than a dirty joke and
a slap on the back. I wonder whether it can be done.
15 If it can, it will happen because women will insist on it, because they
themselves have shown the way, come out of the closet as women,
talked about it, organized, defined an agenda, set their goals and ad¬
mitted that as women just as women—they have problems in com¬
mon. So do men. It's time to talk about them.

THINKING WRITING ACTIVITY 9.8

Explores the Concept Friendship
Read the followins essay by Carol Tavris; then answer the questions in your
journal.

1. What perspectives does Tavris present that are different from those of
Cohen? What ideas in her essay are similar to those in Cohen’s?
 Applying Concepts 343

2. How do you respond to reading these two essays together? Do you see con¬
nections with Chapter 7?
3. How do Cohen's and Tavris’s essays relate to your definition of friendship?

from How Friendship Was "Feminized"

by Carol Tavris

Once upon a time and not so very long ago, everyone thought that
men had the great and true-blue friendships. The cultural references
stretched through time and art: Damon and Pythias, Hamlet and Hora¬
tio, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The Lone Ranger never rode
off with anyone but Tonto, and Laurel never once abandoned Hardy in
whatever fine mess he got them into.
Male friendships were said to grow from the deep roots of shared ex¬
perience and faithful camaraderie, whereas women's friendships were
portrayed as shallow, trivial and competitive, like Scarlett O'Hara's
with her sisters. Women, it was commonly claimed, would sell each
other out for the right guy, and even for a good time with the wrong
one.
Some social scientists told us that this difference was hard wired, a
result of our evolutionary history. In the early 1970's, for example, the
anthropologist Lionel Tiger argued in "Men in Groups" that "male
bonding" originated in prehistoric male hunting groups and was car¬
ried on today in equivalent pack-like activities: sports, politics, business
and war.
Apparently, women's evolutionary task of rummaging around in the
garden to gather the odd yam or kumquat was a solo effort, so females
do not bond in the same way. Women prattle on about their feelings,
went the stereotype, but men act.
My, how times have changed. Today, we are deluged in the wave of
best-selling books that celebrate female friendships—"Girlfriends,"
"Sisters," "Mothers and Daughters" and its clever clone, "Daughters
and Mothers." The success of this genre is partly because the book mar¬
ket is so oriented to female readers these days.
But it is also a likely result of two trends that began in the 1970's and
1980's: Female scholars began to dispel the men-are-better stereotype in
all domains and women became the majority of psychotherapists. The
result was a positive reassessment of the qualities associated with
women, including a "feminizing" of definitions of intimacy and friend¬
ship.
Accordingly, female friendships are now celebrated as the deep and
abiding ones, based as they are on shared feelings and confidences.
344 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

Male friendships are scorned as superficial, based as they are on shared

interests in, say, the Mets and Michelle Pfeiffer.
In our psychologized culture, "intimacy" is defined as what many
women like to do with their friends: talk, express feelings and disclose
worries. Psychologists, most of whom are good talkers, validate this
definition as the true measure of intimacy. For example, in a study of
"intimacy maturity" in marriage, published in the Journal of Personal¬
ity and Social Psychology, researchers equated "most mature" with
"most verbally expressive." As a woman, I naturally think this is a per¬
fectly sensible equation, but I also know it is an incomplete one. To la¬
bel people mature or immature, you also have to know how they
actually behave toward others.
What about all the men and women who support their families, put
the wishes of other family members ahead of their own or act in moral
and considerate ways when conflicts arise? They are surely mature,
even if they are inarticulate or do not express their feelings easily. In¬
deed, what about all the men and women who define intimacy in term s
of deeds rather than words: sharing activities, helping one another
or enjoying companionable silence? Too bad for them. That's a "male"
definition, and out of favor in these talky times.
10 Years ago, my husband had to have some worrisome medical tests,
and the night before he was to go to the hospital we went to dinner
with one of his best friends who was visiting from England. I watched,
fascinated, as male stoicism combined with English reserve produced
a decidedly unfemale-like encounter. They laughed, they told stories,
they argued about movies, they reminisced. Neither mentioned
the hospital, their worries or their affection for each other. They didn't
need to.
It is true that women's style of intimacy has many benefits. A large
body of research in health psychology and social psychology finds that
women's greater willingness to talk about feelings improves their men¬
tal and physical health and makes it easier to ask for help.
But as psychologists like Susan Nolen-Hoeksema of Stanford Uni¬
versity have shown, women's fondness for ruminating about feelings
can also prolong depression, anxiety and anger. And it can keep women
stuck in bad jobs or relationships, instead of getting out of them or do¬
ing what is necessary to make them better.
Books and movies that validate women's friendships are overdue,
and welcome as long as they don't simply invert the stereotype. Play-
ing the women-are-better game is fun, but it blinds us to the universal
need for intimacy and the many forms that friendship takes. Maybe
men could learn a thing or two about friendship from women. But who
is to say that women couldn't learn a thing or two from them in ex¬
change?
 Applying Concepts 345

Using Concepts to Classify

Previous sections of this chapter briefly stated that the thinking pattern of
classification is essential to dealing with concepts and definitions. This sec¬
tion will provide a more thorough discussion.
When you apply a concept to an object, idea, or experience, you are in ef¬
fect classifying the object, idea, or experience by placing it in a group of things
that are defined by the properties or requirements of the concept. In fact, the
same things can often be classified in many different ways. For example, if
someone handed you a tomato and asked, "Which category does this tomato
belong in, fruit or vegetable?" how would you respond? The fact is, a tomato
can be classified as both a fruit and as a vegetable, because its botanical defi¬
nition does not seem consistent with its uses as a food.
Let's consider another example. Imagine that you are walking on un¬
developed land with some other people when you come across an area of
soggy ground with long grass and rotting trees. One person in your group
surveys the parcel and announces, "That's a smelly marsh. All it does is

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 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

breed mosquitoes. It ought to be covered with landfill and built on, so that
we can use it productively." Another member of your group disagrees
with the classification "smelly marsh," stating, "This is a wetland of great
ecological value. There are many plants and animals that need this area
and other areas like it to survive. Wetland areas also help to prevent the
rivers from flooding, by absorbing excess water during heavy rains." Which
person is right? Should the wet area be classified as a "smelly marsh" or
as a "valuable wetland"? Actually, the wet area can be classified both
ways. The classification that you select depends on your needs and your
interests. Someone active in construction and land development may tend
to view the parcel through perceptual lenses that reflect his or her inter¬
ests and experience and classify it accordingly. On the other hand, some¬
one involved in preserving natural resources will tend to view the same
parcel through different lenses and place it in a different category. The
diagram on page 348 illustrates how a tree might be "seen" from a variety
of perspectives, depending on the interest and experience of those in¬
volved.
These examples illustrate how the way you classify reflects and influ¬
ences the way you see the world, the way you think about the world, and the
way you behave in the world. This is true for virtually all the classifications
you make. Consider the racehorse Secretariat, who won the Triple Crown in
1973 and was one of the most famous racehorses that ever lived. Which cate¬
gory should Secretariat be placed in?

■ A magnificent thoroughbred
■ A substantial investment
■ An animal ill-equipped for farming
■ A descendant of Bold Ruler
■ A candidate for the glue factory

You classify many of the things in your experience differently than others
do because of your individual needs, interests, and values. For instance,
smoking marijuana might be classified by some as "use of a dangerous drug"
and by others as a "harmless good time." Some view large cars as "gas guz¬
zlers"; others see the same cars as "safer, more comfortable vehicles." Some
people categorize body piercing as "perverse abuse," while others think of it
as "creative fashion." The way you classify aspects of your experience reflects
the kind of individual you are and the way you think and feel about the
world.
You also place people in various categories. The specific categories
you select depend on who you are and how you see the world. Similarly,
each of us is placed in a variety of classifications by different people. Here,'
for instance, are some of the categories in which certain people have placed
me:
 Defining Concepts 347

Classification People Who Classify Me

First-born son My parents
Taxpayer Internal Revenue Service
Tickler My son/daughter
Bagel with cream cheese Restaurant where I pick up my breakfast

List some of the different ways that you can be classified, and identify the
people who would classify you that way.
Not only do you continually classify things and people, place them in
various groups on the basis of common properties you choose to focus on;
you also classify ideas, feelings, actions, and experiences. Explain, for in¬
stance, why the killing of another person might be classified in different
ways, depending on the circumstances.

Classification Circumstance Example

1. Manslaughter Killing someone Driving while
accidentally intoxicated
2. Self-defense
3. Premeditated
4. Mercy killing
5. Diminished capacity

Each of these classifications represents a separate legal concept, with its own
properties and referents (examples). Of course, even when you understand
clearly what the concept means, the complexity of the circumstances often
makes it difficult to determine which concept applies. Court cases raise com¬
plex and disturbing issues. During a trial, trying first to identify the appro¬
priate concepts, and then to determine which of the further concepts "guilty"
or "not guilty" also applies, is a challenging process. This is true of many of
life's other complex situations: you must work hard at identifying appropri¬
ate concepts to apply to the circumstances you are trying to make sense of,
then be prepared to change or modify these concepts on the basis of new in¬
formation or better insight.

Defining Concepts
When you define a concept, you usually identify the necessary properties or
requirements that determine when the concept can be applied. In fact, the
word definition is derived from a Latin word meaning "boundary," and a def¬
inition gives the boundaries of whatever territory in your experience can be
described by the concept.
Definitions also often make strategic use of examples of the concept be¬
ing defined. Consider the following definition by Ambrose Bierce:

An edible: Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a

toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
348 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

Contrast this definition with the one illustrated in the following passage from
Charles Dickens's Hard Times:

Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind. "Your definition of a horse."

Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four
grinders, four eye teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in
marshy countries shed hoofs, too. Floofs hard, but requiring to be shod
with iron. Age known by marks in mouth." That (and much more)
Bitzer. "Now girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, "you know
what a horse is."

Although Bitzer has certainly done an admirable job of listing some of

the necessary properties or requirements of the concept horse, it is unlikely
that "girl number twenty" has any better idea of what a horse is than she had
before, since the definition relies exclusively on a technical listing of the prop¬
erties characterizing the concept horse without giving any examples that
might illustrate the concept more completely. Definitions like this, relying ex¬
clusively on a technical description of the concept's properties, are not very
helpful unless you already know what the concept means. A more concrete
way of communicating the concept horse would be to point out various ani¬
mals that qualify as horses and other animals that do not. You could also ex¬
plain why they do not. (For example, "That can't be a horse because it has two
humps and its legs are far too long.")
Although examples do not take the place of a clearly understood defini¬
tion, they are often very useful in clarifying, supplementing, and expanding
such a definition. If someone asked you, "What is a horse?" and you replied
by giving examples of different kinds of horses (thoroughbred racing horses,
plow horses for farming, quarter horses for cowhands, circus horses), you
certainly would be communicating a good portion of the meaning of horse.
Giving examples of a concept complements and clarifies the necessary re¬
quirements for the correct use of that concept.

Defining a Concept
Giving an effective definition of a concept requires:

■ Identifying the general qualities of the concept, which determine when

it can be correctly applied.

■ Classifying it, which means identifying its category, type, or "family."

■ Using appropriate examples to demonstrate actual applications of the
concept—that is, examples that embody its general qualities.
■ Differentiating it from other items in its classification.

The process of providing definitions of concepts is basically the same process

that you use to develop concepts. Of course, this process is often difficult and
complex, and people don t always agree on how concepts should be defined.
 Defining Concepts 349

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 9.9

Defining the Concept Responsibility
Review the ideas we have explored in this chapter by analyzes the concept
responsibility, a complex idea that has an entire network of meaning. The word
comes from the Latin word respondere, which means "to pledge or promise."
Write your responses to the instructions below in your journal.
Generalizing
1. Describe two important responsibilities you have in your life and identify
the qualities they embody that lead you to think of them as "responsibili¬
ties."
2. Describe a person in your life who you think is responsible and describe
one you think is irresponsible. In reflecting on these individuals, identify the
qualities they embody that lead you to think of them as "responsible" and
"irresponsible."
interpreting
3. In each of the following situations, describe what you consider examples of
responsible behavior and irresponsible behavior.
a. You are a member of a group of three students who are assigned the task
of writing a report on a certain topic. Your life is very hectic; in addition,
you find the topic dull. What is your response? Why?
b. You are employed at a job in which you observe your supervisor and
other employees engaged in activities that break the company rules. You
are afraid that if you "blow the whistle," you may lose your job. What is
your response? Why?
Defining
4. Using these activities of generalizing and interpreting as a foundation, de¬
fine the concepts responsible and irresponsible by listing the qualities that
make up the boundaries of each concept and identifying the key examples
that embody and illustrate its qualities.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 9.10

Defining the Concept Religion
There are few concepts more complex and emotionally charged than that of re¬
ligion. The following passage is taken from the book Ways of Being Religious
and presents a provocative introduction to the concepts religion and religious
experience. After reading the selection, write answers to these questions in
your journal.
1. Where in this excerpt is the definition of religion given? Do you find that
placement effective? If so, why?
350 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

2. What do you find helpful about the questions at the besinnins of many of
the paragraphs?
3. Apply one of those questions to a different concept and write a paragraph
modeled after the one following the question, substituting this other con¬
cept for religion.

from What Is Religion?

by Frederick J. Strong, Charles L. Lloyd, and Jay T. Allen

An African proverb, from the Ganda tribe in central Uganda, states, "He
who never visits thinks his mother is the only cook." As with most
proverbs, its meaning is larger than the explicit subjects referred to—in
this case food and visiting. It suggests that a person is much the poorer
for not having had exposure to and acquaintance with the ways of other
people.
All of us have had some acquaintance with religious people, just as
we have tasted our mother's food. But do we really understand very
well what it means to be religious? The "Father of the Scientific Study
of Religion, Max Mueller, once said: "He who knows one religion un¬
derstands none." That is perhaps too extreme a statement as it stands,
and yet it says about the study of religion what the African proverb says
about the knowledge of life in general—that we sacrifice much if we
confine ourselves to the familiar.
If a visit is to be fruitful, the traveler" must do more than just move
from place to place. He must respond to what he sees. But what is it that
shapes the way we respond to new experiences? Our perception of
things is often colored by our previous attitudes toward them. In this
case, what do you, the reader, expect from an exposure to various ex¬
pressions of religion? What sorts of things do you expect to see? How
do you think you will respond to them? If you were asked to define, il¬
lustrate, or to characterize religious behavior, how would you do so?
The answers to these questions, of course, reflect your pre-conceptions.
To become conscious of your pre-conceptions, ask yourself the follow¬
ing four questions:

Does your definition reduce religion to what you happen to be ac¬

quainted with by accident of birth and socialization? Perhaps that
goes without saying. It may be true of anyone's "off-the cuff" definition
of religion. However, we ask this question to encourage you to consider
whether your definition has sufficient scope. Is it broad enough to in¬
clude the religious activities of human beings throughout the world? In
surveying university students we have commonly gotten responses to
 Defining Concepts 351

the question, "What is religion?" as follows: "Being Christian, I would

define it [religion] as personal relationship with Christ." "Religion [is]:
God, Christ, and Holy Ghost and their meaning to each individual."
Other students think of worship rather than belief. In this vein, one edi¬
tion of Webster's dictionary, in the first of its definitions, describes reli¬
gion as "the service and adoration of God or a god as expressed in forms
of worship." If we were to accept any of the above definitions, many
people in the world would be excluded—people who regard some of
their most important activities as religious, but who do not focus upon
a deity. That is to say, not all religions are theistic. It remains to be seen,
of course, whether and to what extent this is true. But let us all be
warned of taking our habits or our dictionary as the sole resource for
defining religion. In some areas, the main lines of significant under¬
standing are already well established. Therefore we have no serious
quarrel with Webster's definition of food as "nutritive material taken
into an organism for growth, work, or repair and for maintaining the vi¬
tal processes." But in religion, interpretive concepts are more problem¬
atical. Therefore we are suspicious of the adequacy of the dictionary's
definition of religion.
Another common way to define religion is to regard it as "morality
plus stories," or "morality plus emotion." These are ways of asserting
that religion has to do mainly with ethics, or that its myths merely sup¬
port the particular views of a people. There are, of course, persons for
whom religion has been reduced to ethics, as when Thomas Paine
stated (in The Rights of Man): "My country is the world, and my religion
is to do good." But we should be cautious in assuming that this testi¬
mony would do for all religious people.
A final example of a definition that begins with personal experience
is one that claims: "Religion is a feeling of security"; or, as one student
put it: "Religion is an aid in coping with that part of life which man does
not understand, or in some cases a philosophy of life enabling man to
live more deeply." In locating the basis of religion in man's need for a
sense of security, this approach suggests that the deepest study of reli¬
gion is through psychology. It has been dramatically expressed by the
psychiatrist and writer C. G. Jung when he wrote: "Religion is a rela¬
tionship to the highest or strongest value ... the value by which you are
possessed unconsciously. That psychological fact which is the greatest
power in your system is the god, since it is always the overwhelming
psychic factor which is called 'god.'" Although this understanding of
religion expresses a very important point, many theologians and reli¬
gious philosophers point out that an interpretation that reduces all of
religious experience to psychological, biological, or social factors omits
the central reality exposed in that experience—the Sacred or Ultimate
Reality. Thus, a student of religion should keep open the question of
whether a familiar interpretation of religious life that fits into a conven-
352 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

tional, social science perspective of man is adequate for interpreting the

data.

Does your definition reflect a bias on your part—positive or nega¬

tive toward religion as a whole, or toward a particular religion?
There are many examples of biased definitions that could be cited.
Some equate religion with superstition, thus reflecting a negative eval¬
uation. One man defined religion as "the sum of the scruples which im¬
pede the free exercise of the human faculties." Another hostile view of
religion is to see religion as a device of priests to keep the masses in sub¬
jection and themselves in comfort. Similarly, Karl Marx, while not actu¬
ally attempting to define religion, called it "the opiate of the people,"
again reflecting a bias against (all) religion.
Still others, in defining religion, are stating their concept of true
religion as opposed to what they regard as false or pagan faiths. Henry
Fielding, in his novel Tom Jones, has the provincial parson Mr.
Thwackum saying, "When I mention religion I mean the Christian reli¬
gion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion;
and not only the Protestant religion; but the Church of England." Some
Christians assume that their personal conviction comprises a definition
of religion, so the religion is regarded as "the worship of God through
his Son Jesus Christ," or "a personal relationship with Christ." A Mus¬
lim can point out that the essence of religion is to make peace with God
through complete submission to God's will, a submission that he will
insist is brought to fulfillment in Islam. (In Arabic the word "Islam"
means "submission," "peace," "safety," and "salvation.")
Therefore the student interested in reflecting on religious experience
that includes more than a single institutional or cultural expression
should remember the distinction between descriptive (neutral) and
evaluative definitions. A descriptive definition attempts to be as inclu¬
sive as possible about a class of items, such as religious forms. An eval¬
uative definition, on the other hand, reflects one's own criteria for truth
or falsity, for reality or illusion. In "visiting" religious people, we sug¬
gest that you delay making an evaluation until you have understood
why their expressions and processes have profound meaning for
them—however strange those expressions may seem to you. In the final
analysis, each person must evaluate different religious alternatives; but
one of our goals in bringing together the material in this volume is to
provide you with a variety of options—a variety that is reduced if you
limit religion to any single historical expression.
10 Obviously the believer who advocates one religion to the exclusion
of all others differs sharply from one who rejects all. Nevertheless, if ei¬
ther accepts his own convictions about what is best or worst in religion
as a description of what religion in fact is everywhere and for everyone,
he exhibits a common indifference to unfamiliar, and therefore poten-
 Defining Concepts 353

tially surprising, religious patterns. As a believer (or skeptic), you have

a right to declare your own understanding of what is most important,
most real, in religion. This declaration is, in fact, essential, for it guides
you in your quest for whatever is most real in life. As a student, on the
other hand, you have an obligation to carry your studies as far as nec¬
essary to include relevant data. In this role, your obligation is not only
to your own perception of value but also to a common world of under¬
standing in which men of many religious persuasions can converse
with each other.

Does your definition limit religion to what it has been in the past, and
nothing else, or does your definition make it possible to speak of
emerging forms of religion? In asking this question, we should ob¬
serve two striking facts of the history of religion: there was a time when
some present religions did not exist, and some of the religions which
once emerged no longer exist (for example, the Egyptian and Babylon¬
ian religions). Human history, then, has witnessed the emergence and
abandonment of several religions.
Even religious traditions that have maintained a sense of continuity
over vast stretches of time (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity,
for example) have undergone important changes. Is it really as obvious
as we tend to think that they are essentially the same now as they were
at their origins? Do the terms naming these traditions even today point
to a single entity, however complex? You are familiar with at least some
instances of religious warfare within the Christian tradition. Roman
Catholics have persecuted and killed Lutherans; Lutherans have perse¬
cuted and killed Calvinists; Calvinists, Anglicans; Anglicans, Quakers;
and most have returned the act with interest. Are all of these groups ex¬
pressions of "the one true church"? Are some more Christian than oth¬
ers? Is there only one form of Christianity? Are new movements
violations of the tradition? Or is the one who speaks to his own time the
one who is most faithful to the genius of his tradition? These questions
can be asked of all religious traditions. All have experienced change and
diversity. Furthermore, it seems likely that this will continue, and that
new religious traditions will emerge. Therefore, the conventions of the
past cannot be regarded as the limits of future religious forms.
In part because history has witnessed the emergence and internal
changes of many religions, anthropologists and cultural historians com¬
monly suggest that religion (and human culture in general) has attained
only its adolescence. Likewise, philosophers and religious thinkers in
both East and West point to the anxiety and tensions today that are ex¬
pressed in political, social, economic, and intellectual upheaval. They
raise a question of whether or not man's moral, psychic, and evaluative
resources can catch up with his self-destructive potential seen in tech¬
nologically advanced weapons and psychological-chemical techniques
Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

for social control. The most hopeful of these philosophers perceive the
present turmoil as a lack of "maturity" in human consciousness, and ex¬
press the hope that it is not too late (quite) to change the direction of
man from self-destruction to self-fulfillment.
From this perspective most of mankind's experience is still in the fu¬
ture. The history of religious life to the present isvonly a beginning. But
the basis of these projections is the recognition that man's survival re¬
quires him to recognize religious dynamics and processes for evalua¬
tions as major forces in human life. Should not a definition of religion
aid us in looking at contemporary phenomena to see if any new ways
of being religious are emerging? At least it should not inhibit persons
with an interest in this matter, and we think an introduction to religion
should encourage such reflection.

Does your definition have sufficient precision ? Are there any limits to
the scope of religion, or are the limits so vague that they fail to mark out
an object of study? In an attempt to be as broadminded as possible,
many definitions are like a student's statement that religion is "the
means man has of coping with his world." Or they are similar to the
claim that religion is "believing in a way of life which involves under¬
standing and caring for others," or "religion is love." Such definitions
tell us a good deal, but without some qualification they might refer to
many other expressions of human life than specifically religious ones.
In order to find a focus and a set of limitations at the outer circumfer¬
ence of that focus, we need to designate what are those essential ele¬
ments of religion that will expose the religious meaning of the evidence
we look at.
When one has "visited" (seen) a wide range of religious life, from all
parts of the world and throughout human history, it becomes apparent
that religion is a way of life that involves many processes—all of which,
in different ways, are directed toward a common end. The goal is to
reach a state of being that is conceived to be the highest possible state or
condition. Religion is the general term for the various ways by which
people seek to become changed into that highest state. We understand
religion as a means toward ultimate transformation. By this we are not
claiming that every activity you think of as religious will in fact trans¬
form you ultimately. It might, but that is not our point. We mean that
any reasonably specific means that any persons adopts with the serious
hope and intention of moving toward ultimate transformation should
be termed "religious." We think it possible to speak of all religious ac¬
tivity (Eastern and Western, past, present, and emerging) without re¬
ducing religion to what is merely familiar to us and without putting a
value judgment on one or more religions.
 Defining Concepts 355

THINKING-*-*-WRITING ACTIVITY 9.11

Defining the Concept Poverty

Read the speech "What Is Poverty?" by Jo Goodwin Parker,- then write answers
to the questions in your journal.

1. How do you respond to Parker’s technique of defining by using analogies?

Is there one that you find particularly effective?
2. Identify a paragraph in which Parker gives strong, specific physical exam¬
ples. What effect do these specifics have? Rewrite one sentence, using more
general language. Does it seem more, or less, effective than Parker’s sen¬
tence?
3. Do you think a man might speak or write differently about poverty? What
might a father in a similar situation say?

from What Is Poverty?

by Jo Goodwin Parker

You ask me what is poverty? Listen to me. Here I am, dirty, smelly, and
with no "proper" underwear on and with the stench of my rotting teeth
near you. I will tell you. Listen to me. Listen without pity. I cannot use
your pity. Listen with understanding. Put yourself in my dirty, worn
out, ill-fitting shoes, and hear me.
Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirt- and illness-stained
mattress. The sheets have long since been used for diapers. Poverty is
living in a smell that never leaves. This is a smell of urine, sour milk,
and spoiling food sometimes joined with the strong smell of long-
cooked onions. Onions are cheap. If you have smelled this smell, you
did not know how it came. It is the smell of the outdoor privy. It is the
smell of young children who cannot walk the long dark way in the
night. It is the smell of the mattresses where years of "accidents" have
happened. It is the smell of the milk which has gone sour because the
refrigerator long has not worked, and it costs money to get it fixed. It is
the smell of rotting garbage. I could bury it, but where is the shovel?
Shovels cost money.
Poverty is being tired. I have always been tired. They told me at the
hospital when the last baby came that I had chronic anemia caused from
poor diet, a bad case of worms, and that I needed a corrective operation.
I listened politely—the poor are always polite. The poor always listen.
They don't say that there is no money for iron pills, or better food, or
worm medicine. The idea of an operation is frightening and costs so
much that, if I had dared, I would have laughed. Who takes care of my
356 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

children? Recovery from an operation takes a long time. I have three

children. When I left them with "Granny" the last time I had a job, I
came home to find the baby covered with fly specks, and a diaper that
had not been changed since I left. When the dried diaper came off, bits
of my baby's flesh came with it. My other child was playing with a
sharp bit of broken glass, and my oldest was playing alone at the edge
of a lake. I made twenty-two dollars a week, and a good nursery school
costs twenty dollars a week for three children. I quit my job.
Poverty is dirt. You say in your clean clothes coming from your clean
house, "Anybody can be clean." Let me explain about housekeeping
with no money. For breakfast I give my children grits with no oleo or
cornbread without eggs and oleo. This does not use up many dishes.
What dishes there are, I wash in cold water and with no soap. Even the
cheapest soap has to be saved for the baby's diapers. Look at my hands,
so cracked and red. Once I saved for two months to buy a jar of Vaseline
for my hands and the baby's diaper rash. When I had saved enough, I
went to buy it and the price had gone up two cents. The baby and I suf¬
fered on. I have to decide every day if I can bear to put my cracked, sore
hands into the cold water and strong soap. But you ask, why not hot
water? Fuel costs money. If you have a wood fire it costs money. If you
burn electricity, it costs money. Plot water is a luxury. I do not have lux¬
uries. I know you will be surprised when I tell you how young I am. I
look so much older. My back has been bent over the wash tubs every
day for so long. I cannot remember when I ever did anything else. Every
night I wash every stitch my school age child has on and just hope her
clothes will be dry by morning.
5 Poverty is staying up all night on cold nights to watch the fire, know¬
ing one spark on the newspaper covering the walls means your sleep¬
ing children die in flames. In summer, poverty is watching gnats and
flies devour your baby's tears when he cries. The screens are torn and
you pay so little rent you know they will never be fixed. Poverty means
insects in your food, in your nose, in your eves, and crawling over you
when you sleep. Poverty is hoping it never rains because diapers won't
dry when it rains and soon you are using newspapers. Poverty is seeing
your children forever with runny noses. Paper handkerchiefs cost
money and all your rags you need for other things. Even more costly are
antihistamines. Poverty is cooking without food and cleaning without
soap.
Poverty is asking for help. Have you ever had to ask for help, know¬
ing your children will suffer unless you get it? Think about asking for a
loan from a relative, if this is the only way you can imagine asking for
help. I will tell you how it feels. You find out where the office is that you
are supposed to visit. You circle that block four or five times. Thinking
of your children, you go in. Everyone is very busy. Finally, someone
comes out and you tell her that you need help. That never is the person
 Defining Concepts 357

you need to see. You go see another person, and after spilling the whole
shame of your poverty all over the desk between you, you find that this
isn't the right office after all—you must repeat the whole process, and it
never is any easier at the next place.
You have asked for help, and after all it has a cost. You are again told
to wait. You are told why, but you don't really hear because of the red
cloud of shame and the rising black cloud of despair.
Poverty is remembering. It is remembering quitting school in junior
high because "nice" children had been so cruel about my clothes and
my smell. The attendance officer came. My mother told him I was preg¬
nant. I wasn't, but she thought that I could get a job and help out. I had
jobs off and on, but never long enough to learn anything. Mostly I re¬
member being married. I was so young then. I am still young. For a
time, we had all the things you have. There was a little house in another
town, with hot water and everything. Then my husband lost his job.
There was unemployment insurance for a while and what few jobs I
could get. Soon, all our nice things were repossessed and we moved
back here. I was pregnant then. This house didn't look so bad when we
first moved in. Every week it gets worse. Nothing is ever fixed. We now
had no money. There were a few odd jobs for my husband, but every¬
thing went for food then, as it does now. I don't know how we lived
through three years and three babies, but we did. I'll tell you something,
after the last baby I destroyed my marriage. It had been a good one, but
could you keep on bringing children in this dirt? Did you ever think
how much it costs for any kind of birth control? I knew my husband
was leaving the day he left, but there were no goodbys between us. I
hope he has been able to climb out of this mess somewhere. He never
could hope with us to drag him down.
That's when I asked for help. When I got it, you know how much it
was? It was, and is, seventy-eight dollars a month for the four of us; that
is all I ever can get. Now you know why there is no soap, no needles and
thread, no hot water, no aspirin, no worm medicine, no hand cream, no
shampoo. None of these things forever and ever and ever. So that you
can see clearly, I pay twenty dollars a month rent, and most of the rest
goes for food. For grits and cornmeal, and rice and milk and beans. I try
my best to use only the minimum electricity. If I use more, there is that
much less for food.
Poverty is looking into a black future. Your children won't play with
my boys. They will turn to other boys who steal to get what they want.
I can already see them behind the bars of their prison instead of behind
the bars of my poverty. Or they will turn to the freedom of alcohol or
drugs, and find themselves enslaved. And my daughter? At best, there
is for her a life like mine.
But you say to me, there are schools. Yes, there are schools. My chil¬
dren have no extra books, no magazines, no extra pencils, or crayons, or
358 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

paper and the most important of all, they do not have health. They have
worms, they have infections, they have pink-eye all summer. They do
not sleep well on the floor, or with me in my one bed. They do not suf¬
fer from hunger, my seventy-eight dollars keeps us alive, but they do
suffer from malnutrition. Oh yes, I do remember what I was taught
about health in school. It doesn't do much good. In some places there is
a surplus commodities program. Not here. The county said it cost too
much. There is a school lunch program. But I have two children who
will already be damaged by the time they get to school.
But, you say to me, there are health clinics. Yes, there are health clin¬
ics and they are in the towns. I live out here eight miles from town. I can
walk that far (even if it is sixteen miles both ways), but can my little chil¬
dren? My neighbor will take me when he goes; but he expects to get
paid, one way or another. I bet you know my neighbor. He is that large
man who spends his time at the gas station, the barbershop, and the cor¬
ner store complaining about the government spending money on the
immoral mothers of illegitimate children.
Poverty is an acid that drips on pride until all pride is worn away.
Poverty is a chisel that chips on honor ion til honor is worn away. Some
of you say that you would do something in my situation, and maybe you
would, for the first week or the first month, but for year after year after
year?
Even the poor can dream. A dream of a time when there is money.
Money for the right kinds of food, for worm medicine, for iron pills, for
toothbrushes, for hand cream, for a hammer and nails and a bit of
screening, for a shovel, for a bit of paint, for some sheeting, for needles
and thread. Money to pay in money for a trip to town. And, oh, money
for hot water and money for soap. A dream of when asking for help
does not eat away the last bit of pride. When the office you visit is as
nice as the offices of other governmental agencies, when there are
enough workers to help you quickly, when workers do nor quit in de¬
feat and despair. When you have to tell your story to only one person,
and that person can send you for other help and you don't have to
prove your poverty over and over and over again.
15 I have come out of my despair to tell you this. Remember I did not
come from another place or another time. Others like me are all around
you. Look at us with an angry heart, anger that will help you help me.
Anger that will let you tell of me. The poor are always silent. Can you
be silent too?
 Writing Thoughtfully to Define Concepts 359

Writing Thoughtfully to Define Concepts

Writing a full definition, often called an extended definition, is among the
most important and most difficult of writing activities. Defining terms is
a necessary part of college-level writing and speaking. For productive
discussions about complex issues, all involved must agree on the mean¬
ings of significant terms, so definitions are often required. Difficulties arise
because significant terms related to complex issues are usually abstract
concepts, with possibilities of different definitions for different people.
For example, the common political terms conservative and liberal often
have varied meanings, even to people who identify themselves as one or the
other.
No one has much trouble agreeing on definitions of physical objects. A
table, a tree, a television set—not many arguments arise about what these ob¬
jects are. But like liberal and conservative, concepts such as religion, love, democ¬
racy, femininity, and masculinity can be defined in different ways. If people
discussing ideas like these do not establish definitions, their discussions will
not be productive. Worse, these discussions probably will lead to disagree¬
ments, arguments, and even wars. The readings and Thinking-^Writing Ac¬
tivities in this chapter have been selected and planned to demonstrate the
importance of definitions.
Notice how with both simple objects and complex concepts, defining
is somewhat easier as long as a single word is being looked at. As soon as
modifying and classifying ideas are added, defining becomes more chal¬
lenging and more significant to critical thinking. A beautiful table, a good
tree to plant in a small yard, the best television set to buy for your family
room—now these objects call for fuller definitions. The kind of democracy
that can work in a country with a history of despotism, the kind of love that
a parent might have for an adult child—these are the types of concepts
that people must define in order to present arguments, to make decisions, to
solve problems. These are the kinds of terms that you might want to define
in the Writing Project in this chapter because they are the kinds that involve
judgments; they are important to our lives because they influence our
actions.
Clear, satisfying definitions can be as extended as book chapters or arti¬
cles or entire books; however, a definition often will be developed in a para¬
graph or two as a vital part of a paper or report. In the Writing Project for this
chapter, you will write an essay that defines; you will see the need for using
a variety of thinking/organizing patterns as you develop it. The principles
for writing definitions are not fixed rules; there may be times when you
would have good reasons for varying or ignoring some of them. Try to use
them, though, unless you have good reason not to.
360 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

1. Establish the need for a definition. Do people disagree on the meaning of

the concept? Are there multiple meanings? Are earlier definitions no
longer satisfactory? Is this a new concept or new terminology?
2. Choose carefully the word or words in which you state the concept. Def¬
initions provide precision, so you need to be sure that you have pre¬
sented the concept in the words that are most indicative.
3. Deal in some way with two kinds of dictionary definitions: the short one
in a regular college dictionary and the historical presentation in the Ox¬
ford English Dictionary. The terseness of the ordinary definition is usually
the reason why an extended definition is needed. Word origins and past
meanings can often illuminate the meaning that you want to present.
4. Be sure that you identify the category into which the concept fits.
5. Show comparative thinking. Point out similar concepts, but then make
clear how your concept is distinct. Think of analogies that can illuminate
the meaning of the concept.
6. Provide specific examples to show what the concept means. Illustrative
anecdotes are often effective.
7. Include the meaning of the concept in the thesis statement. Give careful
thought to where you state the thesis.
8. Throughout your definition, emphasize that you are establishing the
meaning you believe the concept has within the context that you have
identified.
9. Address the foregoing principles in separate paragraphs or sections of
the definition. Provide each paragraph with a clear topic sentence when¬
ever appropriate.
10. Document any sources that you use. Introduce source material into your
definition, explain and comment on it, and cite correctly.
 Writing Thoughtfully to Define Concepts 361

WRITING PROJECT

This chapter has included both readings and Thinking^ Writing Activities
that encourage you to define concepts that affect your life. Be sure to reread
what you wrote for the Activities; you may be able to use some of what you
wrote for help in completing this project.

WRITING PROJECT Defining an Important Concept

Write an essay in which you define a concept that is important to

your life now or to your future life in the twenty-first century. Include
in your paper explanations of why this concept is significant for you
and why it needs defining or redefining. You may want to think of a
concept that is expressed in a phrase, rather than in a single word,
as discussed above. Include material from two sources in addition to
any dictionaries that you consult. Integrate your sources into your
essay and document them as your professor directs. After you have
drafted your essay, revise it to the best of your ability. Follow in¬
structions given by your professor as to topic limits, length, formats,
and so forth.

Begin by considering the key elements in the Thinkings Writing Model.

Purpose
You have a variety of purposes here. You want to think about and formulate
a definition that is significant to you as you continue your college studies, or
decide on your profession, or enter a new phase in your personal life. Also,
you can hone your revision skills by working through the revision questions
that follow.

Audience
You have a multilevel audience. You are an important audience, for in facing
the challenge of defining a complex concept, you can think more clearly
about some aspect of your life. Your classmates can learn from your defini¬
tion and also can be a valuable audience in peer reviews of a draft, reacting
as intelligent readers who are not as knowledgeable as you about the concept
that pertains to your life. In addition, you should think about and identify
people outside your class who would enjoy or profit from reading your def¬
inition. Of course, your instructor remains the audience who will judge how
well you have planned, drafted, revised, and presented your paper. As a writ¬
ing teacher, your instructor cares about clear focus, logical organization, solid
evidence, accurate documentation of sources, and correctness. Keep these in
mind as you revise, edit, and proofread.
362 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

Subject
All of us need to be able to define abstract, complex terms that are founda¬
tions for our thinking, our decisions, and our actions in life. College courses,
family life, spiritual concerns, and romantic relationships all involve con¬
cepts that need to be well defined so that we understand what we mean when
we speak and write, so that we understand what others mean when they
communicate with us, and—most important—so that we can avoid confu¬
sion and conflict.

Writer
This project provides you with the opportunity to participate in the "conver¬
sation of ideas" that is the lifeblood of thoughtful, reflective people in a soci-
ety. By defining a rich, complex concept, you are explaining how the concept
you have selected has personal meaning for you. Since concepts exist in the
world, you are also suggesting to others—your audience—how they might
think about your analysis of the concept. The definition you propose may
help them understand something in their experience more clearly, or it may
provide an added meaning they have not previously considered. The outside
sources integrated into your analysis ensure that your definition is grounded
in a common understanding that goes beyond your own unique experience.

The Writing Process

The following sections will guide you through the recursive stages of gener-
athig, planning, drafting, and revising as you work on an essay in which you
define a significant concept. Try to be particularly conscious of both the crit¬
ical thinking you do as you articulate your definition and the critical think¬
ing and decision making you do when you revise.

Generating Ideas
■ Refer back to the responses you wrote for the Thinking^ Writing Activ¬
ities connected with the readings on gender issues, the exercise about
responsibility, and the essay on defining religion. These concepts are
important in many people's lives, so perhaps you will write about one
of them—or perhaps what you read and wrote will lead you to another
concept to define.
■ Think about the activities or concerns that are central to your life. Some
of these are probably rather serious in nature, as are the subjects dis¬
cussed in this chapter, but some parts are surely more lighthearted, like
sports you play or watch, or television comedies, or thriller movies, or
parties. Whatever the level of seriousness, all areas of our lives are
based on concepts that we should be able to define.
 The Writing Process 363

■ Next, think of concepts inherent in some of your activities, such as a

satisfying relationship with your girlfriend or boyfriend, or what it
means to be a good athlete or college student or member of your reli¬
gion.
■ Now, list the properties of two or three concepts that you have identi¬
fied. Include specific examples. How should each example be classi¬
fied?
■ Think about why any of these concepts need to be defined or redefined.
Do people agree on the meaning? Have you formulated a meaning that
is more precise and accurate?
■ Share your lists and thinking with classmates and, if you can, with
people involved in the area in which the concept is important.
■ Use as many thinking patterns as you can to discover ideas about your
concept. What is it different from? similar to? analogous to? Describe it;
think about what causes it; think about what effects it has.
■ Look up the key words in the concept in a good college-level dictionary
and also in the Oxford English Dictionary. Ask your professor or one of
your college librarians to explain the OED to you. See if you can use
any of your concept's word history to help with your definition.
■ Freewrite for at least five minutes about why the concept is important
to your life, why it needs to be defined, and what information needs to
be in your definition.

Defining a Focus
■ Look at your freewriting and lists to see what main idea you are mov¬
ing toward in your definition. Write this idea in any way that you can.
■ Now draft a thesis statement that gives the key ideas in your definition.
Recently a student defining freedom of religion had as her thesis sen¬
tence: "To me, freedom of religion means more than simply being able
to practice our religions as we believe that we should; it also means that
we must understand and respect other people's religions." Another stu¬
dent, working on a definition of today's superwoman, wrote, "The
main properties of a superwoman are being capable, tenacious, and in¬
dependent."
■ Be sure that your thesis statement emphasizes the meaning of the con¬
cept that you are defining.

Organizing Ideas
Essays emphasizing definition are not easy to organize because there are so
many approaches to a clear definition of a complex concept. Because the
thesis—the essence of the definition—needs to be placed in a context and
 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

explained in a number of ways, the question of where to state the thesis is es¬
pecially crucial. This is the kind of essay in which it might come at the end.
(Reread the "What Is Religion?" essay on pages 352-356 to see how this or¬
ganizing technique was used.) When you state the thesis at the end, you need
to lead up to it or preview it throughout the essay. However, you will want to
think of stating the thesis provisionally near the beginning and referring to it
as you establish your definition.
Identify the approaches that you have used in your generative writing
and early drafts. Where have you used contrast, comparison, analogy, narra¬
tion, and so on? The material developed by each of these approaches is likely
to form a paragraph. The definitions that you have found in your dictionary
and in the OED will need a paragraph or two of connection with the defini¬
tion that you are developing. As you always should do, give careful thought
to paragraphing. Try your drafted paragraphs in different orders to discover
which order will help your readers understand your definition.
Because it is important readers understand the need for a definition, and
explaining that need is an effective way to begin. The significance of this con¬
cept in your life might be part of a beginning or a conclusion.

Drafting
Begin with the paragraph easiest to draft. Explaining the concept's signifi¬
cance in your life is likely to be easy, since you are writing about your
thoughts and feelings; showing the need for a definition should not be diffi¬
cult because you are writing about one of your convictions. Therefore, you
may want to draft these personal paragraphs first. Then you might feel more
comfortable explaining the connection of the word history to your concept
and also find it easier to make classifying, comparative, and contrastive ex¬
planations.
As you draft, be sure that each paragraph contains real-life examples that
pertain to the meaning of the concept, unless for some good reason a specific
paragraph does not need examples.
After you draft your paragraphs, make every effort to write topic sen¬
tences that focus on how the material in the paragraph helps to establish the
meaning of your concept.
As you draft the conclusion, be sure that it provides a satisfying ending
with some reference to the thesis and emphasis on the meaning of the con¬
cept.

Revising
Ideally, at this point, you should put your draft aside for a day or two. If
deadlines won't permit you to do that, then at least take a break before you
try to revise. When you are ready to "re-see" your writing, begin by reading
it through slowly, preferably aloud. If possible, have someone whose opinion
 The Writing Process 365

you respect read it; ask for feedback. Then work through the hierarchy of
revision concerns that follows. Remember that you have at least one and
possibly two decisions to make for each question: (1) Is improvement
needed? and (2) If improvement is needed, how, exactly, can I make my draft
better?

1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.

■ Does it fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ Is the organization logical?
■ Do you provide enough evidence?
■ Is your point of view consistent?
■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs?
■ Have you documented information from your sources accurately?
■ Have you used quotation marks around direct quotes or set the quotes off
by indenting?

2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.

■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
■ Is the introduction appropriate for the rest of the draft?
■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a "visible" structure?
■ If you are working with an "invisible structure," is your focus implied?
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
■ Does each body paragraph develop a different idea?
■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Is your conclusion effective?

3. Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.

■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
■ Are sentences with blended quotations (that is, quotations that are inte¬
grated into the syntax of the sentence instead of introduced with "He
said ..." or "she said ...") complete and easy to read?
■ Are quotations shortened with ellipsis marks accurate and readable?
■ Are there several choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Are any sentences vague?
■ Do any sentences need to be corrected for standard English grammar and
usage?

4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.

■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are any words misspelled?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
366 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

■ Does your paper make a good impression by being neat?

■ Is there anything else you could do to improve your draft?

Proofreading
After you prepare a final draft, check again for correct grammar and punctu¬
ation. Proofread carefully for omitted words or punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread carefully
for the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.

Student Essays
The following essays show how two students responded to this assignment.

STUDENT WRITING
The Real Teacher
by Mary Kamara

The job of a high school teacher is to impart knowledge to his or her

students on the subject being taught. However, from my view, I do
not think that imparting knowledge really defines the work of a good
teacher. The teacher also has to lead, counsel, and act as a role
model. My tenth grade English teacher displayed all those qualities,
and I am happy to say today that this teacher served as a model for
my life. Memories of her still linger in my mind.
Her name was Mrs. Davies. When I was in her class, she had taught
for eighteen years. Besides teaching English, she tried to influence the
behavior of her students in a positive direction. In a conversation I
had with her once after I graduated, she said that she knew that she
had to behave very nicely in front of her students to set the pace for
them. She was always very polite and respectful, even when she had
to discipline us. She understood the importance of the position of
teacher in the African town where we lived.
There were moments in her class when I would do something
wrong like talking or not paying attention, and she would set me
straight. I used to think that she was mean, but then I realized that
she helped me become a person who knows how to behave. I
always try to show respect wherever I find myself, and I owe this
to her.
In an article in Phi Delta Kappan, it says ". . . without guidance
and support, students may find themselves excluded from settings
where valued knowledge is pursued. Then they are more likely to
lose their motivation to attend school, and they may give up on their
dreams" (Maddox, Smith 228). I relate to this statement because
 Student Writing 367

my nephew, a very bright boy, dropped out of school, partly due to

lack of suidance at his school. He did not have a teacher like Mrs.
Davies.
Besides the discipline, Mrs. Davies was a motivator and a coun¬
selor. She encouraged me and other students to aim high. Yet it was
her exemplary behavior that influenced me a lot. According to the En¬
cyclopedia of Psychology, "All individuals learn various roles by being
trained into them, by imitating them, and by a process of identifica¬
tion with the available role models in a particular situation” (Smith
326). I decided to be a teacher myself, so that I could be a good role
model, too.
In conclusion, I want to stress that the job of a high school teacher
should be defined as more than just to impart knowledge. Teachers
must influence young minds by guiding and by acting as role models.

Works Cited
Davies, Rhonda. Personal conversation. 1979.
Maddox, Anne, and Renee Smith. "Untracking and Students' Futures." Phi
Delta Kappan Nov. 1995: 227-229.
Smith, P. W. "Role Expectations." Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2nd ed.

STUDENT WRITING
Genius
by Tze Wing Chan

Have you ever been called "genius”? I hope you have. When we know
someone who has outstanding ability, we say that this person must be
a genius. Even though the word genius is used frequently, everybody
might not agree on the exact meaning of the word. We might wonder
sometimes what a real genius is and why we cannot all be geniuses.
Since the meaning of the word "genius" seems questionable, I did
some research in order to learn about it.
The word "genius” has changed meaning through history. Accord¬
ing to one definition in the Oxford English Dictionary, genius means:
A native intellectual power of an exalted type, such as is attributed to those
who are esteemed greatest in any department of art, speculation, or prac¬
tice; instinctive and extraordinary capacity for imaginative creation, original
thought, invention, or discovery.
Perhaps this modern definition is accepted by almost everybody, but
it was derived from different meanings as time went by. The very be¬
ginning sources are Latin and Greek words that mean to be born. The
ancient Romans considered genius as the spirit that protected one’s
household (Sternberg 483). Greigson and Gibbs-Smith discussed the
368 Chapter 9 Forming Concepts—Writing to Classify and Define

origin of the word in Ideas and said that the term came "to personify
one’s wishes" and to mean "the guardian angel"; then later on, by the
seventeenth century, it meant talent and innate ability (159). After a
long time, the word "genius" acquired the meaning that we know
nowadays. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in 1749 in the
book Tom Jones, the modern meaning is used imthe phrase "By the
wonderful force of genius only, without the least assistance of learning."
After thinking about these meanings, I decided that childhood life
experiences and good fortune are factors that can cause one to develop
his or her innate ability. Some of the sources that I found discussed
these ideas. Sternberg said that some geniuses, such as some of the
Nobel prize winners in literature, suffered from their family situations
(486). These geniuses might have had no parents or been discriminated
against, which might make them feel and think differently. On the other
hand, some geniuses come from families which offered them opportu¬
nities to work with their interests from the time that they were children.
For example, Mozart and Beethoven came from musical families.
A cause that I found very interesting, discussed in the Encyclope¬
dia of Human Intelligence is good fortune. As the author Sternberg
stated:

The difference between being outstandingly able and being considered a

genius is akin to the distinction between being one of the numerous soldiers
who act bravely in a battle and one of the few who are awarded a medal
for heroism (484).

So to be considered as a genius, it is essential that one should have

an innate ability in a certain area, but also luck. For instance, a poet
who has unbelievable skill for writing poems might never be recog¬
nized as a genius if no one around him or her knows how to appreci¬
ate the poems. Therefore, a genius is the product of the ability
combined with fortune.
Geniuses have existed at all times. Even though we can see some of
the factors that cause someone to be a genius, we might still not be ex¬
actly sure why it happens. If God created all of us equal, how can one
have some powers that others cannot have? Some people might con¬
sider this an injustice. However, I think that we need geniuses. How
would we communicate if Alexander Graham Bell had not invented the
telephone? Geniuses and their creations benefit us all, even if we all do
not have "a native intellectual power of an exalted type."

Works Cited
"Genius." The Encydopedia Dictionary of Psychology. 3rd ed. 1986.
"Genius." The Oxford English Dictionary. 1933
Griegson, Geoffrey, and Charles H. Gibbs-Smith. "Genius." Ideas. 2nd ed. 1957.
I Sternberg, Robert J. "Genius." Encydopedia of Human Intelligence. 1994.
PART THREE

Thinking and Writing to Explore Issues

and Take Positions

chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose
Solutions
chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to
Establish Agreement

A s you have become more aware of your own thinking and writing
abilities, and more confident in using them, you may also have become
more respectful of the thinking and writing of others. You have observed
how not only your academic work but even democracy itself depends on
valid analysis of sources of belief and of other people's positions and
arguments. You have been learning how to evaluate information in order to
solve problems and how to express your own perspective clearly.
In Part 1 of this book, you were focusing on yourself.
In Part 2, your focus was on incorporating the ideas of others. Here in
Part 3, the focus will be on presenting both your own ideas and those of
others in well-reasoned writing.
The Writing Projects at the end of each chapter in Part 3 ask you to
integrate ideas from other sources into your own written work. (Those ideas
might come from the readings in this book, items you discover in a library, or
material from other sources.) As you do so, you will learn effective,
responsible ways of introducing, documenting, and commenting on ideas
from others. And you will practice using the formats of academic citation. Your
instructor and your handbook will provide information on citation methods.
 CHAPTER 10

Believing and Knowing—Writing to

Analyze

Critical Thinking Focus: Analyzing beliefs and their accuracy

Writing Focus: Evaluating evidence
Reading Theme: The media: shaping our thinking
Writing Project: Analyzing influences on beliefs

Thinking and Writing Critically About Beliefs

Writers write what they believe, and their purposes often include explaining
their beliefs and persuading others to adopt them. Yet what exactly are beliefs
and how are they constructed? When should they be kept, when should they
be modified, and when should they be discarded? What are the differences be¬
tween believing and knowing, and how do writers handle these differences?
How do writers present beliefs they hold with varying degrees of certainty?
In this information age," we are flooded with data, stories, and pictures
from television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, and computers. Much
of this information is accurate, but much is not. We are aware of the "spin
doctors" who seek to influence the way we interpret information, trying to
persuade us to accept their construction of events. Thus, critical thinkers and
thoughtful writers face a continuing challenge to evaluate information they
receive and to redefine beliefs accordingly.
Chapter 2 examined the sources of beliefs, especially those related to per¬
sonal life. This chapter continues that discussion by examining the nature of
beliefs, by presenting guidelines for evaluating beliefs, and by drawing dis¬
tinctions between believing and knowing and between knowledge and truth.
370
 The Nature of Beliefs 371

The chapter then analyzes three ways in which writers can present their be¬
liefs: as reports, inferences, and judgments.

The Nature of Beliefs

Throughout our lives, we form beliefs about the world around us to explain
why things happen as they do, to predict how things will happen, and to gov¬
ern the way we decide to act. Consider, for example, the extent to which you
believe the following statements.

1. Human beings need to eat in order to stay alive.

2. Smoking marijuana is a harmful activity.
3. Every human life is valuable.
4. Developing your mind is as important as taking care of your body.
5. People should care about other people, not just themselves.

Your responses to these statements reflect certain beliefs you have, beliefs
not all people share equally.
So what exactly are "beliefs"? A belief represents an interpretation, eval¬
uation, conclusion, or prediction about the nature of the world. The state¬
ment "I believe that the U. S. Constitution's guarantee of 'the right of the
people to keep and bear arms' does not prohibit all governmental regulation
of firearms" represents an interpretation of the Second Amendment. To say "I
believe that watching soap operas is unhealthy because they focus almost ex¬
clusively on the seamy side of human life" expresses an evaluation of soap op¬
eras. The statement "I believe that one of the main reasons two out of three
people in the world go to bed hungry each night is that industrially advanced
nations like the United States have not done a satisfactory job of sharing their
knowledge" expresses a conclusion about the problem of world hunger. To
say, "I believe that if drastic environmental measures are not undertaken to
slow the global warming trend, the polar icecaps will melt and the earth will
be flooded" is to make a prediction about events that will occur in the future.
Besides expressing an interpretation, evaluation, conclusion, or predic¬
tion about the world, beliefs also express the speaker's endorsement of the ac¬
curacy of those beliefs—an indication that the belief is held to be true. This
endorsement by the speaker is a necessary dimension of beliefs, and we as¬
sume it to be the case even if he or she doesn't directly say, "I believe." The
statement "Astrological predictions are meaningless because there is no per¬
suasive evidence that the position of the stars has any effect on human af¬
fairs" expresses a belief even though it doesn't specifically include the words
I believe.
In addition, it is necessary to recognize that beliefs are not static—at least
not if we apply a critical approach. We form and re-form our beliefs in an on-
372 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

going way throughout much of our lives. This process often follows the fol¬
lowing sequence:

1. We form beliefs in order to explain what is taking place. (These initial be¬
liefs are often based on our past experiences.)
2. We test these beliefs by acting on the basis of them.
3. We revise (or re-form) these beliefs if our actions do not achieve our goals.
4. We re-test these revised beliefs by using them as a basis for action.

As we actively participate in this ongoing process of forming and re¬

forming beliefs, we are using our critical thinking abilities to identify and
critically examine our beliefs by, in effect, asking the following questions:
■ How effectively do these beliefs explain what is taking place?
■ To what extent are the beliefs consistent with other beliefs about the world?
■ How effectively do the beliefs help us to predict what will happen in the
future?

■ To what extent are these beliefs supported by sound reasons and compelling
evidence derived from reliable sources?

This process of critical exploration enables us to develop more under¬

standing of various situations in our experience and to exert more control
over them.

Beliefs: interpretations, evaluations, conclusions, or predictions

that we endorse as true.

Four Kinds of Beliefs

1. Interpretation: The Supreme Court's recent rulings against affirmative ac¬
tion mean that no institution can now make hiring or admissions decisions
based on race.
2. Evaluations. Children today spend too much time watching television and
too little time reading.
3. Conclusions. The United States needs to limit legal immigration to decrease
competition with native-born workers for jobs.
4. Predictions: With the shrinking of the global community, there will be an in¬
creasing need in the future for Americans to speak more than one language.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 10.1

Creating Different Beliefs

In your journal, state in a sentence or two a belief that you have in each of the
four catesories discussed (interpretation, evaluation, conclusion, prediction).
 The Nature of Beliefs 373

At least some of these statements should be ones that not everyone would
agree with.

1. Interpretation: I believe that “X means this."

2. Evaluation.- I believe that "X is good/bad, harmful/beneficial, and so forth."
3. Conclusion: I believe that "X is what exists/should exist."
4. Prediction: I believe that "X will happen."

Chapter 2, in its introductory discussion of beliefs, identified four sources

of beliefs: persons of authority, recorded references, observed evidence, and
personal experience. The last two involve direct experience. Yet how we in¬
terpret and understand direct experience—what conclusions we draw from
what we perceive—depends to some extent on what we already believe. In
offering evidence to support their beliefs, people generally choose those per¬
ceptions and experiences that fit with their previous beliefs; contradictory ex¬
periences may be ignored or downplayed. In the following pair of readings,
two writers offer differing beliefs about the situation of the homeless in the
United States, based on differing perceptions of direct experience. L. Christo¬
pher Awalt's essay appeared as a "My Turn" column in Newsweek magazine.
Following that is a chapter from a book about homelessness, "The Allesan-
dros" by Jonathan Kozol, a long-time advocate for the politically and socially
disenfranchised.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 10.2

Thinking Critically About Homelessness

Before you begin to read, write in your journal two or three of your beliefs
about homelessness and the homeless. After you have read both pieces, write
answers to any two of the following questions.
1. Await and Kozol have formed differing beliefs based on direct experience
working with the homeless. Await states his beliefs directly,- Kozol is less di¬
rect, but his beliefs are nonetheless clear. Summarize their differing beliefs.
2. Why do you think the experiences the two men describe are so different? Do you
think the experiences each writer presents are primarily responsible for his be¬
liefs—or do previously held beliefs seem to have contributed to either writer’s
perception of direct experience?
3. Are any of your beliefs about homelessness based on direct experience? If so,
whose experiences are closer to yours, Awalt’s or Kozol’s? How do your own be¬
liefs contribute to your response to each essay?
4. Are Awalt's and Kozol’s experiences with the homeless equally effective as evi¬
dence for each writer’s beliefs? Do you feel as though you have enough evidence
in general to form your own beliefs about homelessness? Why or why not?
374 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

from Brother, Don't Spare a Dime

by L. Christopher Await

Homeless people are everywhere—on the street, in public buildings, on

the evening news and at the corner parking lot. You can hardly step out
of your house these days without meeting some haggard character who
asks you for a cigarette or begs for "a little change." The homeless are
not just constant symbols of wasted lives and failed social programs—
they have become a danger to public safety.
What's the root of the homeless problem? Everyone seems to have a
scapegoat: Advocates of the homeless blame government policy; politi¬
cians blame the legal system; the courts blame the bureaucratic infra¬
structure; the Democrats blame the Republicans; the Republicans, the
Democrats. The public blames the economy, drugs, the "poverty cycle,"
and the breakdown of society." With all this finger-pointing, the group
most responsible for the homeless being the way they are receives the
least blame. That group is the homeless themselves.
How can I say this? For the past two years I have worked with the
homeless, volunteering at the Salvation Army and at a soup kitchen in
Austin, Texas. 1 have led a weekly chapel service, served food, listened,
counseled, given time and money, and shared in their struggles. I have
seen their response to troubles, and though I'd rather report otherwise,
many of them seem to have chosen the lifestyles they lead. They are un¬
willing to do the things necessary to overcome their circumstances.
They must bear the greater part of the blame for their manifold troubles.
Let me qualify what I just said. Not everyone who finds himself out
of a job and in the street is there because he wants to be. Some are vic¬
tims of tragic circumstances. I met many dignified, capable people dur¬
ing my time working with Austin's homeless: the single father
struggling to earn his high-school equivalency and to be a role model
for his children; the woman who fled a good job in another city to es¬
cape an abusive husband; the well-educated young man who had his
world turned upside down by divorce and a layoff. These people de¬
serve every effort to help them back on their feet.
But they're not the real problem. They are usually off the streets and
resuming normal lives within a period of weeks or months. Even while
"down on their luck," they are responsible citizens, working in the shel¬
ters and applying for jobs. They are homeless, true, but only temporar¬
ily, because they are eager to reorganize their lives.
For every person temporarily homeless, though, there are many who
are chronically so. Whether because of mental illness, alcoholism, poor
education, drug addiction, or simple laziness, these homeless are con¬
tent to remain as they are. In many cases they choose the streets. They
enjoy the freedom and consider begging a minor inconvenience. They
know they can always get a job for a day or two for food, cigarettes, and
 The Nature of Beliefs 375

alcohol. The sophisticated among them have learned to use the system
for what it's worth and figure that a trip through the welfare line is less
trouble than a steady job. In a society that has mastered dodging re¬
sponsibility, these homeless prefer a life of no responsibility at all.

Waste of time. One person I worked with is a good example. He is an

older man who has been on the streets for about 10 years. The story of
his decline from respectability to alcoholism sounded believable and I
wanted to help. After buying him toiletries and giving him clothes, I
drove him one night to a Veterans Administration hospital, an hour and
a half away, and put him into a detoxification program. I wrote him
monthly to check on his progress and attempted to line up a job for him
when he got out. Four months into his program, he was thinking and
speaking clearly and talking about plans he wanted to make. At five
months, he expressed concern over the life he was about to lead. Dur¬
ing the sixth month, I called and was told that he had checked himself
out and returned home. A month later I found him drunk again, back
on the streets.
Was "society" to blame for this man? Hardly. It had provided free
medical care, counseling, and honest effort. Was it the fault of the econ¬
omy? No. This man never gave the economy a chance to solve his prob¬
lems. The only person who can be blamed for his failure to get off the
streets is the man himself. To argue otherwise is a waste of time and
compassion.
Those who disagree will claim that my experience is merely anecdo¬
tal and that one case does not a policy make. Please don't take my word
for it. The next time you see someone advertising that he'll work for
food, take him up on it. Offer him a hard day's work for an honest wage,
and see if he accepts. If he does, tell him you'll pay weekly, so that he
will have to work for an entire week before he sees any money. If he still
accepts, offer a permanent job, with taxes withheld and the whole she¬
bang. If he accepts again, hire him. You'll have a fine employee and so¬
ciety will have one less homeless person. My guess is that you won't
find many takers. The truly homeless won't stay around past the second
question.
So what are the solutions? I will not pretend to give ultimate an¬
swers. But whatever policy we decide upon must include some notion
of self-reliance and individual responsibility. Simply giving over our
parks, our airports, and our streets to those who cannot and will not
take care of themselves is nothing but a retreat from the problem and al¬
lows the public property that we designate for their "use" to fall into
disarray. Education, drug, and alcohol rehabilitation, treatment for the
mentally ill, and job training programs are all worthwhile projects, but
without requiring some effort and accountability on the part of the
homeless for whom these programs are implemented, all these efforts
do is break the taxpayer. Unless the homeless are willing to help them-
376 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

selves, there is nothing anyone else can do. Not you. Not me. Not the
government. Not anyone.

The Allesandros
by Jonathan Kozol

Far from any zone of safety lives a man named Mr. Allesandro. He's six
feet tall and weighs 120 pounds—down 20 pounds from late September.
When he came to the hotel a year ago he weighed 165.1 first met him in
the ballroom before Christmas when I handed him an apple. One bright
apple. One week later he does not forget and, when he sees me in the
lobby, asks me if I have some time to talk.
His two daughters are asleep. Christopher, his nine-year-old, is lying
on the top bunk, fully dressed and wrapped beneath a pile of blankets,
but he is awake and vigilant and almost belligerently alert. It's a cold
night and the room appears to be unheated. Mr. Allesandro shows me
a cracked pane of glass that he has covered over with a sheet of garbage
plastic and Scotch tape. The two coils of the hot plate offer a symbolic
reassurance ("heat exists") but they do not provide much warmth. He's
wearing a coat and woolen hat. His mother, who is seventy-three, lives
with them; for some reason, she's not here.
There aren't many men as heads of households in this building; this
fact, I think, adds to his feeling of humiliation. His story, quickly told,
remains less vivid for me later on than certain details like his trembling
hands, the freezing room, the strange sight of his watchful boy, un¬
sleeping on the bed. The boy reminds me of a rabbit staring from a
thicket or caught in the headlights of a car.
These, as Mr. Allesandro tells me, are the facts: He was one of several
maintenance workers in a high-rise building in Manhattan owned by
one of the well-known developers. It was early autumn and his wife, for
reasons I don't learn until much later, just picked up one day and dis¬
appeared. He tried to keep his job and home by rising early, feeding the
children, bringing them to school, then rushing to his job. But his shift
required him to be on duty very early. He was reprimanded and, when
he explained his problem, was permitted to stay on but cut back to a
half-time job. Half-time work was not enough to pay the rent. He was
evicted. In the subsequent emergency he had to take leave from his job.
"My mother went with me to the EAU. We asked them if we could
be placed together. That way, she could get the kids to school and I
could keep my job." Instead, they put him in a barracks shelter with the
children but would not allow his mother to go with them. As best he un¬
derstands, this is because she drew a Social Security check and was on
a different budget from his own. Eligibility rules are difficult to fathom;
 The Nature of Beliefs 377

but, even where the consequences are calamitous and costly, they are
faithfully observed.
"So I'm alone there in this place with about 200 cots packed side by
side. Men and women, children," he says, "all together. No dividers.
There's no curtains and no screens. I have to dress my kids with people
watching. When my girls go to the toilet I can't take them and they're
scared to go alone. A lot of women there are frantic. So I stand and wait
outside the door."
He went back to the EAU and begged once more. "In my line of
work," he says, "you don't earn much of your money from the salary.
The people in the building get to know you and you do them favors and
they give you money in return. Christmas is a time you get your tips.
They'll hand you an envelope. Twenty dollars. Fifty dollars. Some give
you a hundred. These are very wealthy people ..." So his disappoint¬
ment was intensified by recognition of the fact that he could not get
back his job in time to benefit from the expected generosity of people
whom he'd known: "Some of those people knew me well. They liked
me." He seems desperate to be assured that he was liked, remembered,
missed, by people who had frequently befriended him.
The use of barracks shelters as deterrence to the homeless is not ab¬
solute. Assignments are made "on an ad hoc basis," as one social
worker states it. But nothing that Mr. Allesandro said could bring the
EAU to place his mother with him. His former boss, he says, had told
him he would take him back if he could start the day at 5:00 A.M.
"There's no way that I could do it. Would you leave your kids alone
within a place like that at 5:00 A.M.? I couldn't do it."
The upshot is this: He loses the chance to go back to his job a few
weeks before Christmas. Although he's worked for many years, he
hasn't been on this job long enough to have accumulated pension bene¬
fits. Dispossession from his home has left him unemployed; unemploy¬
ment now will render permanent his homelessness.
Having finally lost everything he had, he returns a few weeks later to
the EAU. This time having undergone "deterrence" and still being
homeless, he is granted "temporary" placement at the Martinique. His
mother can join him now. But he is no longer a wage earner; he s an
AFDC father, broken in spirit, mourning for those lost tips which he will
obsessively recall each time we talk. His job has been assigned to some¬
one else. He loses self-control. He thanks God for his mother. This
strikes me as a gruesome and enormously expensive instance of mu¬
nicipal assault upon a man's work ethic and familial integrity at the
same time.
How does he feel not working?
"It's a nightmare, I'm Italian. You know—I don't mean this to sound
prejudiced"—all of the white people here, I notice, are extremely care¬
ful and apologetic on this score—"my people work. My father and
378 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

grandfather worked. My mother worked. I can do construction, car¬

pentry. I can repair things. I'm somebody who's mechanically inclined.
I would make beds, I would clean toilets. I'd do anything if I could have
a decent job."
He searches the ads, walks the pavement, rides the subway; but he
cannot find a job that pays enough to rent a home and feed three chil¬
dren. His rent allowance is $281. He's seen apartments for $350 and
$400. If he takes an apartment over his rent limit he will have to make
the difference up by cutting back on food and clothes. His mother's
pension is too small to offer them a safety margin. "I wouldn't risk it.
I'm afraid to take a chance. Even if I got a job, what if I lost it? I'd be back
there with the children in the barracks."
So, like everybody else, he's drowning in the squalor of the Mar¬
tinique Hotel but dreads the thought of being forced to leave.
"My mother helps to make it like a home. She tries. We got the kids
a kitten, which is something that is not allowed . I don't like to break the
rules, but you have got to give them something to remember that
they're children."
Thinking of his hunger, I ask how he feeds the cat.
"We don't need to. We have never bought one can. She eats better
than we do—on the mice and rats."
Around midnight I notice that Christopher is wide awake and
watching from the bed: blue eyes, pale skin, blondish hair. Mrs. Alle-
sandro cuts the children's hair.
Where is Mrs. Allesandro?
Mr. Allesandro calls her "grandma" and he speaks of her as if she
were his grandmother as well. Grandma fell in the stairwell Friday af¬
ternoon. There had been a fire and the stairs were still slick from the wa¬
ter left there by the fire hoses. She's in the hospital for an examination
of her hip. He tells me that she has a heart condition. "If anything hap¬
pens to her [pauses]... I'd be dead. She's the one that's holding us to¬
gether."
Other people in this building speak of Mrs. Allesandro in almost
identical words. They count on her perhaps even a little more than on
the nurse or on the other people in the crisis center. Unlike the crisis
workers she is here around the clock. As short of food and money as
the Allesandros are, I am told that she is often in the hallways bring¬
ing food to neighbors, to a pregnant woman, a sick child living some¬
where on the floor. A man who knows her but does not live on this floor
speaks of Mrs. Allesandro in these words: "Here she is, an old Italian
lady. Here are all these women. Most of them are Puerto Rican, black
You will see them holding onto her, crying to her as if she was their
mother."
Mrs. Allesandro, however, is not here tonight. Her son is on his
own—a skeleton of hunger, disappointment, fear. I look at him, at the

l ■
 The Nature of Beliefs 379

two girls, asleep, and at the boy—awake, alert. The boy's persistent
gaze unsettles me. I ask him: "Are you sleepy?" He just shakes his head.
His father is too proud to tell me that the boy is hungry. I feel embar¬
rassed that it's taken me so long to ask. At my request he opens the re¬
frigerator door. There is one packaged dinner, smuggled out of the
lunch program. "There was something wrong with it," he says. It has a
rancid smell. "It's spoiled." There's a gallon tin of peanut butter, two
part-empty jars of applesauce, some hardened bread. That's it.
Mr. Allesandro takes the $20 that I hand him to the corner store.
Christopher sits up halfway and talks with me. He lists for me the ten
largest cities of America. I ask him whether he likes school. He does not
give the usual perfunctory affirmative response. "I hate it," Christopher
says. I ask him what he does for fun. He plays ball on the sidewalk at
the corner of the street across from the hotel.
"Is there room to play ball on the sidewalk?"
25 He explains: "We play against the building of the bank—against the
wall."
He falls asleep after I think of giving him a candy bar. His father re¬
turns in twenty minutes with a box of Kellogg's Special K, a gallon of
juice, half-gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, a package of
sausages, a roll of toilet paper. He wakes his son. The boy has a bowl
of cereal with milk. His father stands before the counter where he
placed the food. He looks like a man who has been admitted to an ele¬
gant buffet.
Is Mr. Allesandro laden with anxiety? Is Christopher depleted, sick,
exhausted? Yes, I suppose both statements are correct. Are they candi¬
dates for psychiatric care? Perhaps they are, but I should think a more
important observation is that they are starving.
A few months after my evening with the Allesandros, President Rea¬
gan meets a group of high school students from New York. Between
government help and private charity, he says, "I don't believe there is
anyone that is going hungry in America simply by reason of denial...."
The president says there is a problem of "people not knowing where or
how to get this help." This is what he also says of those who can't find
space in public housing that he has stopped building.
His former counselor and now attorney general, Edwin Meese, con¬
cedes that people have been turning to soup kitchens but refuses to ac¬
cept that they are in real need. They go to soup kitchens "because the
food is free," he says, and adds, "that's easier than paying for it."
30 Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund makes this
interesting calculation: If Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger were to
give up just a single Pentagon budget item, that which pays for him to
have a private dining room, one million low-income school children
could get back their morning snack—a snack denied them by adminis¬
tration cuts.
 380 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

Hundreds of miles from Christopher's bedroom in the Martinique, a

reporter describes an underground limestone cave near Kansas City:
the largest surplus-food repository in the nation. In this cave and in
some other large facilities, in the winter of 1986, the government was
storing some 2 billion pounds of surplus food. To a child like Christo¬
pher, the vision of millions of pounds of milk and cheese and butter se¬
creted in limestone caves might seem beyond belief. Storage of this
surplus food costs taxpayers $1 million a day.
Getting surplus food from limestone caves to children's tables calls
for modest but essential transportation costs. In an extraordinary ac¬
tion, termed illegal by the General Accounting Office, the president de¬
ferred funds allocated by the Congress for transporting food to
homeless people. The sum involved, $28 million, is a small amount be¬
side the $365 million spent to store this food in limestone caves and
other warehouse areas. The withholding of such funds may possibly
make sense to an economist. I do not know whether it would make
much sense to Christopher.

November 1986: I'm in New York and visit with the Allesandros.
Grandma s back. She says her health is good. But Christopher
looks frighteningly thin. Food was scarce before. The situation's wors¬
ened since I was here last. Families in the homeless shelters of New York
have been cut back on their food-stamp allocations. The White House
has decided to consider money paid for rental to the hotel owners as a
part of family income. By this standard, families in the Martinique are
very rich. "Tightening of eligibility requirements" has an abstract
sound in Washington. On the twelfth floor of the Martinique what does
it mean?
I study the computerized receipts that Mr. Allesandro has received.
In June, his food-stamp allocation was $145. In August, the first stage in
government reductions lowered this to $65. In October: $50. As of De-
35 cember it will be $33.
Mrs. Allesandro does not speak in ambiguities about the lives of her
grandchildren. I ask her what the cuts will mean. "They mean," she
says, that we aren t going to eat." New York announces it will help
make up the difference but, at the time I visit, no supplemental restau¬
rant allowances have been received.

Beliefs Based on Indirect Experience

No matter how much we have experienced in our lives, the fact is, of course,
that no one person's direct experiences are enough to establish an adequate
set of accurate beliefs. We all depend on the experience of other people to pro-
 Evaluating Information and Sources 381

vide us with beliefs and also to serve as foundations for those beliefs. For
example, does China exist? How do we know? Have we ever been there
and seen it with our own eyes? Probably not; nevertheless, we believe in
the existence of China and its over one billion inhabitants. Of all the beliefs
each one of us has, few are actually based on our direct personal experi¬
ence. Instead, other people have communicated to us virtually all these
beliefs and the evidence for them, in some way or form. As we reach be¬
yond our personal experiences to form and revise beliefs, we find that in¬
formation is provided by two sources: people of authority and recorded
references.
As we have seen in the essays about homelessness by Await and Kozol,
the beliefs of others cannot be accepted without question. Each of us views
the world through unique lenses, which shape and influence the way we se¬
lect and present information. Comparing different sources helps to make
these lenses explicit and highlights the different interests and purposes in¬
volved. In fact, reaching to sources may lead us to recognize that there are a
variety of competing viewpoints, some fairly similar, some quite contradic¬
tory. In critically examining the beliefs of others, it is essential for us to pur¬
sue the same goals of accuracy and completeness that we set when examining
beliefs based on personal experience. As a result, we focus on the reasons or
evidence that support the information others are presenting.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 10.3

Origins of My Beliefs
Look back at the beliefs you’ve been writins about for previous activities. To
what extent have these beliefs been shaped by indirect sources—by family,
friends, teachers, television, masazines, books, radio, the Internet, and so
forth? Indicate some specific ways in which your beliefs have been influenced
by two or three indirect sources and tell why you considered those sources re¬
liable.

Evaluating Information and Sources

When we depend on information provided by others, there is a key question
we must ask: How reliable is the person or other source providing the infor¬
mation?
Most crucial to determining the reliability of information from an indi¬
rect source is determining the reliability of the source itself.
 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

How Reliable Is the Source?

We know that some sources—such as advertising—can be very unreliable,
whereas other sources, such as Consumer Reports, are considered generally
reliable. Sometimes, however, the reliability of a source of information is
not immediately clear. In those cases, we have to consider a variety of
standards or criteria helpful for evaluating a source's reliability, whether
the source is written or spoken. Essential questions to ask include the fol¬
lowing.

■ How knowledgeable or experienced is the source?

■ Was the source able to make accurate observations?
■ What do we know about the past reliability of the source?

How Knowledgeable or Experienced Is the Source?

When we seek information from indirect sources, we want to locate persons
of authority or recorded references that offer a special understanding of the
subject. When a car begins making strange noises, we search for someone
who knows cars. When we want to know more about a social issue, such as
homelessness, we turn to articles and books written by people who have
studied the problem,.
In seeking information from sources, it is important to distinguish be¬
tween "lay" sources and "expert" sources who have training, education, and
experience in a particular area. It is also important that any expert source's
credentials be up-to-date. A book about careers in the computer industry
published twenty years ago is not likely to be reliable. Sports and entertain¬
ment figures often endorse products in television commercials, but the relia¬
bility of their testimony is not very strong if those products have nothing to
do with sports or entertainment (and these "experts" may have been paid
large sums of money and told exactly what to say). Finally, expert opinion
should not be accepted without question or critical examination, even if the
experts meet all the criteria that we have been exploring. As noted earlier,
each of us sees the world through individual lenses that color the objectivity
of his or her observations.

Was the Source of the Information Able to Make Accurate

Observations?
You may be familiar with an experiment in which an angry student enters a
classroom, argues with the professor, then pulls out a gun and apparently
shoots the professor before running out. Students in the class are then quickly
informed that the situation has been staged to test their powers of observa¬
tion and asked to record what happened in as much detail as they can re-
 Evaluating Information and Sources 383

member. Invariably many "witnesses" are quite mistaken in much of what

they remember, while others can recall many fine details exactly. The same is
true in any kind of eyewitness accounts: some people have quite sharp mem¬
ories, while others may "remember" many imagined details. In addition,
one's vantage point as a witness may color the reliability of one's testimony.
The amount of light, obstructions to one's vision, and other matters can keep
one's perceptions from being wholly reliable.
The reliability of indirect sources also depends on the personal view¬
points and beliefs (the lenses) the source brings to a situation. These personal
feelings, expectations, and interests often influence what one perceives with¬
out one's full awareness of the fact. For example, a group that sponsored an
anti-racism rally on a campus might claim a crowd of more than five hun¬
dred, while campus security issues a report estimating the rally at about two
hundred. We have seen that two different writers can come to very different
conclusions after spending time working in a homeless shelter. What further
questions could be asked and how might further sources be located to evalu¬
ate the reliability of such differing sources?

How Reputable Is the Source?

As we work at evaluating the reliability of sources, it is useful to consider
how accurate and reliable their information has been in the past. If someone
has consistently given sound information over a period of time, we gradually
develop confidence in the accuracy of that person's reports. Police officers
and newspaper reporters must continually evaluate the reliability of infor¬
mation sources. Of course, this works the other way as well. When people
consistently give inaccurate or incomplete information, others lose confi¬
dence in their reliability. Nevertheless, few people are either completely reli¬
able or completely unreliable in the information they offer. You probably
realize that your own reliability tends to vary, depending on the situation, the
type of information you are providing, and the person to whom you are giv¬
ing the information. Thus, in trying to evaluate the information offered by
others, you have to explore each of the following factors before arriving at a
provisional conclusion, which may then be revised in the light of additional
information.

Information Evaluation Questions

1. How reliable is the information?

a. What are the main ideas being presented?
b. What reasons or evidence support the information?
c. Is the information accurate? Does anything about it seem false?
d. Does anything seem to have been left out?
384 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

2. How reliable is the source of the information?

a. What is the source of the information?
b. What are the interests or purposes of this source?
c. How may these interests and purposes have affected the information
being offered?
d. How have these interests and purposes influenced the way this infor¬
mation is presented?

THINKING*-*WRITING ACTIVITY 10.4

Evaluating Sources of My Beliefs
Look back at the beliefs you have been writing about for previous activities in
this chapter. You have already identified some sources that helped you estab¬
lish those beliefs or that have reinforced them. Choose one of your beliefs that
is based at least partly on indirect experience (sources such as people of au¬
thority and recorded references). Now, on the basis of the criteria just dis¬
cussed, evaluate one source of your belief in terms of reliability. Does the
source seem reliable? How can you tell?

Believing and Knowing

Developing beliefs that are as accurate as possible is important to critical
thinkers because the more accurate our beliefs, the better we are able to un¬
derstand the world around us and to predict what will occur in the future. As
the preceding discussion has suggested, however, the beliefs we form can
vary tremendously in accuracy.
We use the word knowing to distinguish beliefs supported by strong rea¬
sons or evidence (such as belief that there is life on earth) from beliefs for
which there is less support (such as belief that there is life on other planets)
or from beliefs disproved by reasons or evidence to the contrary. The follow¬
ing saying expresses another way to understand the difference between be¬
lieving and knowing:
'You can believe what is not so, but you cannot know what is not so."
In the following essay, astrophysicist Alan Lightman considers a ques¬
tion that would seem to have an obvious answer. In doing so, he analyzes the
difference between believing and knowing.
 Believing and Knowing 385

from Is the Earth Round or Flat?

by Alan Lightman

I propose that there are few of you who have personally verified that
the Earth is round. The suggestive globe in the den or the Apollo pho¬
tographs don't count. These are secondhand pieces of evidence that
might be thrown out entirely in court. When you think about it, most of
you simply believe what you hear. Round or flat, whatever. It's not a
life-or-death matter, unless you happen to live near the edge.
A few years ago I suddenly realized, to my dismay, that I didn't
know with certainty if the Earth were round or flat. I have scientific col¬
leagues, geodesists they are called, whose sole business is determining
the detailed shape of the Earth by fitting mathematical formulae to
someone else's measurements of the precise locations of test stations on
the Earth's surface. And I don't think those people really know either.
Aristotle is the first person in recorded history to have given proof
that the Earth is round. He used several different arguments, most
likely because he wanted to convince others as well as himself. A lot of
people believed everything Aristotle said for 19 centuries.
His first proof was that the shadow of the Earth during a lunar
eclipse is always curved, a segment of a circle. If the Earth were any
shape but spherical, the shadow it casts, in some orientations, would
not be circular. (That the normal phases of the moon are crescent¬
shaped reveals the moon is round.) I find this argument wonderfully
appealing. It is simple and direct. What's more, an inquisitive and un¬
trusting person can knock off the experiment alone, without special
equipment. From any given spot on the Earth, a lunar eclipse can be
seen about once a year. You simply have to look up on the right night
and carefully observe what's happening. I've never done it.
Aristotle's second proof was that stars rise and set sooner for people
in the East than in the West. If the Earth were flat from east to west, stars
would rise as soon for Occidentals as for Orientals. With a little scrib¬
bling on a piece of paper, you can see that these observations imply a
round Earth, regardless of whether it is the Earth that spins around or
the stars that revolve around the Earth. Finally, northbound travelers
observe previously invisible stars appearing above the northern hori¬
zon, showing the Earth is curved from north to south. Of course, you do
have to accept the reports of a number of friends in different places or
be willing to do some traveling. Aristotle's last argument was purely
theoretical and even philosophical. If the Earth had been formed from
smaller pieces at some time in the past (or could have been so formed),
its pieces would fall toward a common center, thus making a sphere.
Furthermore, a sphere is clearly the most perfect solid shape. Interest¬
ingly, Aristotle placed as much emphasis on this last argument as on the
Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

first two. Those days, before the modern "scientific method," observa¬
tional check wasn't required for investigating reality. Assuming for the
moment that the Earth is round, the first person who measured its cir¬
cumference accurately was another Greek, Eratosthenes (276-195 B.C.).
Eratosthenes noted that on the first day of summer, sunlight struck the
bottom of a vertical well in Syene, Egypt, indicating the sun was di¬
rectly overhead. At the same time in Alexandria, 5,000 stadia distant,
the sun made an angle with the vertical equal to 1/50 of a circle. (A sta¬
dium equaled about a tenth of a mile.) Since the sun is so far away, its
rays arrive almost in parallel. If you draw a circle with two radii ex¬
tending from the center outward through the perimeter (where they be¬
come local verticals), you'll see that a sun ray coming in parallel to one
of the radii (at Syene) makes an angle with the other (at Alexandria)
equal to the angle between the two radii. Therefore Eratosthenes con¬
cluded that the full circumference of the Earth is 50 x 5,000 stadia, or
about 25,000 miles. This calculation is within one percent of the best
modern value.
For at least 600 years educated people have believed the Earth is
round. At nearly any medieval university, the quadrivium was standard
fare, consisting of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The as¬
tronomy portion was based on the Tractatus de Sphaera, a popular text¬
book first published at Ferrara, Italy, in 1472 and written by a 1.3th
century, Oxford-educated astronomer and mathematician, Johannes
de Sacrobosco. The Sphaera proves its astronomical assertions, in part, by
a set of diagrams with movable parts, a graphical demonstration of Aris¬
totle s second method of proof. The round Earth, being the obvious cen¬
ter of the universe, provides a fixed pivot for the assembly. The cutout
figures of the sun, the moon, and the stars revolve about the Earth.
By the year 1500,24 editions of the Sphaera had appeared. There is no
question that many people believed the Earth was round. I wonder how
many knew this. You would think that Columbus and Magellan might
have wanted to ascertain the facts for themselves before waving good¬
bye. To protect my honor as a scientist, someone who is supposed to
take nothing for granted, I set out with my wife on a sailing voyage in
the Greek islands. I reasoned that at sea I would be able to calmly ob¬
serve landmasses disappear over the curve of the Earth and thus con¬
vince myself, firsthand, that the Earth is round.
Greece seemed a particularly satisfying place to conduct my experi¬
ment. I could sense those great ancient thinkers looking on approvingly,
and the layout of the place is perfect. Hydra rises about 2,000 feet above
sea level. If the Earth has a radius of 4,000 miles, as they say, then Hy¬
dra should sink down to the horizon at a distance of about 50 miles,
somewhat less than the distance you were to sail from Hydra to Kea.
The theory was sound and comfortable. At the very least, I thought, you
would have a pleasant vacation.
As it turned out, that was all you got. Every single day was hazy. Is-
 Knowledge and Truth 387

lands faded from view at a distance of only eight miles, when the land
was still a couple of degrees above the horizon. I learned how much wa¬
ter vapor was in the air but nothing about the curvature of the Earth.
10 I suspect that there are quite'a few items you take on faith, even im¬
portant things, even things you could verify without much trouble. Is
the gas you exhale the same as the gas you inhale? (Do you indeed burn
oxygen in your metabolism, as they say?) What is your blood made of?
(Does it indeed have red and white "cells"?) These questions could be
answered with a balloon, a candle, and a microscope.
When you finally do the experiment, you relish the knowledge. At
one time or another, you have all learned something for yourselves,
from the ground floor up, taking no one's word for it. There is a special
satisfaction and joy in being able to tell somebody something you have
pieced together from scratch, something you really know. I think that
exhilaration is a big reason why people do science.
Someday soon, I'm going to catch the Earth's shadow in a lunar
eclipse, or go to sea in clear air, and find out for sure if the Earth is round
or flat. Actually, the Earth is reported to flatten at the poles, because it
rotates. But that's another story.

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 10.5

Thinking About Your Beliefs and Knowledge

Look again at the beliefs you have been writing about for previous activities.
Could you say of any of them "I know this" rather than merely "I believe this”?
Why? Write answers to these questions in your journal.

Knowledge and Truth

Authorities often disagree about the true nature of a given situation or the
best course of action. It is not uncommon, for example, for doctors to disagree
about a diagnosis; for economists to differ on the state of the economy; or for
psychiatrists to disagree on whether a convicted felon is a menace to society
or a victim of social forces.
What do we do when experts disagree? As critical thinkers, we must an¬
alyze and evaluate all the available information, develop our own well-
reasoned beliefs, and recognize when we lack sufficient information to arrive
at well-reasoned beliefs. We must realize, too, that such beliefs may evolve
over time as we gain information or improve our insight.
Although there are compelling reasons to view knowledge and truth as
evolving, some people resist doing so. Either they take refuge in a belief in the
absolute, unchanging nature of knowledge and truth, as presented by the ap-
388 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

propriate authorities, or they conclude that there is no such thing as knowl¬

edge or truth and that trying to seek either is futile.

Understanding Relativism
In this latter view of the world, known as relativism, all beliefs are considered
"relative" to the person or context in which they arise. For the relativist, all
opinions are equal in validity to all others; we are never in a position to say
with confidence that one view is right and another one wrong. Although a
relativistic view is appropriate in some areas of experience—for example, in
matters of taste such as fashion—in many other areas it is not. Knowledge, in
the form of well supported beliefs, does exist. Some beliefs are better than
others, not because an authority has proclaimed them so but because they can
by analyzed in terms of the criteria listed earlier in this chapter.

Understanding Falsifiable Beliefs

Another important criterion for evaluating certain beliefs is that the beliefs be
falsifiable. This means that it is possible to state conditions—tests—under
which the beliefs could be disproved, and that the beliefs then pass those
tests. For example, if you believe that you can create ice cubes by placing
water-filled trays in a freezer, you can conduct an experiment to determine
whether your belief is accurate. If no ice cubes form after you put the trays in
the freezer, your theory is disproved. If, however, you believe that your des¬
tiny is related to the positions of the planets and stars (as astrologers do), it is
not clear how you can conduct an experiment to determine whether your be¬
lief is accurate. Since a belief that is not falsifiable can never be proved, such
a belief is questionable.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 10.6

Constructing Knowledge
Read the followins passages, which purport to give factual reports about the
events that were observed at the Battle of Lexington during the American Revo¬
lution.* After analyzing these accounts, develop your own version of what you
believe took place on that day. Include such information as the size of the two
forces, the sequence of events (for example, who fired the first shot?), and the
manner in which the two groups conducted themselves (were they honorable?
brave?). In rating the reliability of each source, consider the following:
Account 1 is drawn from a mainstream American history textbook.
Account 2 is taken from a British history book, written by a former prime
minister of England.
Account 3 comes from a colonist who participated in this event with the
colonial forces. He gave the account thirty years after the battle, in order to
qualify for a military pension.
 Knowledge and Truth 389

Knowledge and Truth: A critical thinker sees knowledge and truth as

ongoing goals that we are striving to achieve through exploration and
analysis, not fixed destinations.

Account 4 comes from a British soldier who participated in the event. He

gave the account in a deposition while he was a prisoner of war of the colo¬
nial forces.
*This exercise was developed by Kevin O'Reilly, creator of the Critical Thinking in History
Project.
390 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

Four Accounts of the Battle of Lexington

In April 1775, General Gage, the military governor of Massachusetts,
sent out a body of troops to take possession of military stores at Con¬
cord, a short distance from Boston. At Lexington, a handful of “embat¬
tled farmers," who had been tipped off by Paul Revere, barred the way.
The "rebels" were ordered to disperse. They stood their ground. The
English fired a volley of shots that killed eight patriots. It was not long
before the swift-riding Paul Revere spread the news of this new atrocity
to the neighboring colonies. The patriots of all of New England, al¬
though still a handful, were now ready to fight the English. Even in far¬
away North Carolina, patriots organized to resist them. —Samuel
Steinberg, The United States: Story of a Free People

At five o'clock in the morning the local militia of Lexington, seventy

strong, formed up on the village green. As the sun rose the head of the
British column, with three officers riding in front, came into view. The
leading officer, brandishing his sword, shouted, "Disperse, you rebels,
immediately!" The militia commander ordered his men to disperse. The
colonial committees were very anxious not to fire the first shot, and
there were strict orders not to provoke open conflict with the British reg¬
ulars. But in the confusion someone fired. A volley was returned. The
ranks of the militia were thinned and there was a general melee. Brush¬
ing aside the survivors, the British column marched on to Concord.
—Winston Churchill, History of the English-speaking Peoples

The British troops approached you rapidly in platoons, with a General

officer on horse-back at their head. The officer came up to within about
two rods of the centre of the company, where I stood—the first platoon
being about three rods distant. They there halted. The officer then
swung his sword, and said, "Lay down your arms, you damn'd rebels,
or you are all dead men—fire." Some guns were fired by the British at
you from the first platoon, but no person was killed or hurt, being prob¬
ably charged only with powder. Just at this time. Captain Parker or¬
dered every man to take care of himself. The company immediately
dispersed; and while the company was dispersing and leaping over the
wall, the second platoon of the British fired, and killed some of your
men. There was not a gun fired by any of Captain Parker's company
within my knowledge. —Sylvanus Wood, Deposition

I, John Bateman, belonging to the Fifty-Second Regiment, commanded

by Colonel Jones, on Wednesday morning on the nineteenth day of April
instant, was in the party marching to Concord, being at Lexington, in the
County of Middlesex; being nigh the meeting-house in said Lexington,
there was a small party of men gathered together in that place when
 Knowledge and Truth 391

your Troops marched by, and I testify and declare, that I heard the word
of command given to the Troops to fire, and some of said Troops did fire,
and I saw one of said small party lay dead on the ground nigh said
meeting-house, and I testify that I never heard any of the inhabitants so
much as fire one gun on said Troops. —John Bateman, Testimony

Media and Truth

We are all aware in a general way that the media shape our beliefs by the in¬
formation they provide and the interpretations they give to that information.
We may not be aware, however, of some of the subtle ways in which this is
done or of the profound influences that result. As you read the following es¬
says, consider how your beliefs might be shaped by the sources discussed by
these writers.
The following article by Harry Waters originally appeared in Newsweek.
It reports on studies conducted by a University of Pennsylvania professor,
concerning the influence of television on people's beliefs.

from Life According to TV

by Harry Waters

The late Paddy Chayefsky, who created Howard Beale, would have
loved George Gerbner. In "Network," Chayefsky marshaled a scathing,
fictional assault on the values and methods of the people who control
the world's most potent communications instrument. In real life, Gerb¬
ner, perhaps the nation's foremost authority on the social impact of
television, is quietly using the disciplines of behavioral research to con¬
struct an equally devastating indictment of the medium's images and
messages. More than any spokesman for a pressure group, Gerbner has
become the man that television watches. From his cramped, book-lined
office at the University of Pennsylvania springs a steady flow of studies
that are raising executive blood pressures at the networks' sleek Man¬
hattan command posts.
George Gerbner's work is uniquely important because it transports
the scientific examination of television far beyond familiar children-and-
violence arguments. Rather than simply studying the link between vio¬
lence on the tube and crime in the streets, Gerbner is exploring wider and
deeper terrain. He has turned his lens on TV's hidden victims—women,
the elderly, blacks, blue-collar workers and other groups—to document
the ways in which video-entertainment portrayals subliminally condi¬
tion how we perceive ourselves and how we view those around us. Gerb¬
ner's subjects are not merely the impressionable young; they include all
the rest of us. And it is his ominous conclusion that heavy watchers of the
prime-time mirror are receiving a grossly distorted picture of the real
world that they tend to accept more readily than reality itself.
392 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

The 63-year-old Gerbner, who is dean of Penn's Annenberg School of

Communications, employs a methodology that meshes scholarly obser¬
vation with mundane legwork. Over the past 15 years, he and a tireless
trio of assistants (Larry Gross, Nancy Signorielli and Michael Morgan)
videotaped and exhaustively analyzed 1,600 prime-time programs in¬
volving more than 15,000 characters. They then drew up multiple-choice
questionnaires that offered correct answers about the world at large
along with answers that reflected what Gerbner perceived to be the mis¬
representations and biases of the world according to TV. Finally, these
questions were posed to large samples of citizens from all socioeconomic
strata. In every survey, the Annenberg team discovered that heavy view¬
ers of television (those watching more than four hours a day), who ac¬
count for more than 30 percent of the population, almost invariably
chose the TV-influenced answers, while light viewers (less than two
hours a day), selected the answers corresponding more closely to actual
life. Some of the dimensions of television's reality warp:

Sex

Male prime-time characters outnumber females by 3 to 1 and, with a

few star-turn exceptions, women are portrayed as weak, passive satel¬
lites to powerful, effective men. TV's male population also plays a vast
variety of roles, while females generally get typecast as either lovers or
mothers. Less than 20 percent of TV's married women with children
work outside the home—as compared with more than 50 percent in real
life. The tube's distorted depictions of women, concludes Gerbner, re¬
inforce stereotypical attitudes and increase sexism. In one Annenberg
survey, heavy viewers were far more likely than light ones to agree with
the proposition: "Women should take care of running their homes and
leave running the country to men."

Age

People over 65, too, are grossly underrepresented on television. Cor¬

respondingly, heavy-viewing Annenberg respondents believe that the el¬
derly are a vanishing breed, that they make up a smaller proportion of the
population today than they did 20 years ago. In fact, they form the na¬
tion s most rapidly expanding age group. Heavy viewers also believe
that old people are less healthy today than they were two decades ago,
when quite the opposite is true. As with women, the portrayals of old
people transmit negative impressions. In general, they are cast as silly,
stubborn, sexually inactive and eccentric. "They're often shown as feeble
grandparents bearing cookies," says Gerbner. "You never see the power
that real old people often have. The best and possibly only time to learn
about growing old with decency and grace is in youth. And young peo¬
ple are the most susceptible to TV's messages." f
 Knowledge and Truth 393

Race

The problem with the medium's treatment of blacks is more one of im¬
age than of visibility. Though a tiny percentage of black characters come
across as "unrealistically romanticized/' reports Gerbner, the over¬
whelming majority of them are employed in subservient, supporting
roles—such as the white hero's comic sidekick. "When a black child
looks at prime time," he says, "most of the people he sees doing inter¬
esting and important things are white." That imbalance, he goes on,
tends to teach young blacks to accept minority status as naturally in¬
evitable and even deserved. To assess the impact of such portrayals on
the general audience, the Annenberg survey forms included questions
like "Should white people have the right to keep blacks out of their
neighborhoods?" and "Should there be laws against marriages between
blacks and whites?" The more that viewers watched, the more they an¬
swered "yes" to each question.

Work

Heavy viewers greatly overestimated the proportion of Americans em¬

ployed as physicians, lawyers, athletes and entertainers, all of whom in¬
habit prime-time in hordes. A mere 6 to 10 percent of television
characters hold blue-collar or service jobs vs. about 60 percent in the
real work force. Gerbner sees two dangers in TV's skewed division of
labor. On the one hand, the tube so overrepresents and glamorizes the
elite occupations that it sets up unrealistic expectations among those
who must deal with them in actuality. At the same time, TV largely ne¬
glects portraying the occupations that most youngsters will have to en¬
ter. "You almost never see the farmer, the factory worker or the small
businessman," he notes. "Thus not only do lawyers and other profes¬
sionals find they cannot measure up to the image TV projects of them,
but children's occupational aspirations are channeled in unrealistic di¬
rections." The Gerbner team feels this emphasis on high-powered jobs
poses problems for adolescent girls, who are also presented with views
of women as homebodies. The two conflicting views, Gerbner says, add
to the frustration over choices they have to make as adults.

Health

Although video characters exist almost entirely on junk food and quaff
alcohol 15 times more often than water, they manage to remain slim,
healthy and beautiful. Frequent TV watchers, the Annenberg investiga¬
tors found, eat more, drink more, exercise less and possess an almost
mystical faith in the curative powers of medical science. Concludes
Gerbner: "Television may well be the single most pervasive source of
health information. And its overidealized images of medical people,
394 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

coupled with its complacency about unhealthy life-styles, leaves both

patients and doctors vulnerable to disappointment, frustration and
even litigation."

Crime

On the small screen, crime rages about 10 times More often than in real
life. But while other researchers concentrate on the propensity of TV
mayhem to incite aggression, the Annenberg team has studied the hid¬
den side of its imprint: fear of victimization. On television, 55 percent of
prime-time characters are involved in violent confrontations once a
week; in. reality, the figure is less than 1 percent. In all demographic
groups in every class of neighborhood, heavy viewers overestimated
the statistical chance of violence in their own lives and harbored an ex¬
aggerated mistrust of strangers—creating what Gerbner calls a "mean-
world syndrome." Forty-six percent of heavy viewers who live in cities
rated their fear of crime "very serious" as opposed to 26 percent for
light viewers. Such paranoia is especially acute among TV entertain¬
ment's most common victims: women, the elderly, nonwhites, foreign¬
ers and lower-class citizens.
Video violence, proposes Gerbner, is primarily responsible for im¬
parting lessons in social power: it demonstrates who can do what to
whom and get away with it. "Television is saying that those at the bot¬
tom of the power scale cannot get away with the same things that a
white, middle-class American male can," he says. "It potentially condi¬
tions people to think of themselves as victims."
At a quick glance, Gerbner's findings seem to contain a cause-and-ef-
fect, chicken-or-the-egg question. Does television make heavy viewers
view the world the way they do or do heavy viewers come from the
poorer, less experienced segment of the populace that regards the world
that way to begin with? In other words, does the tube create or simply
confirm the unenlightened atti tudes of its most loyal audience? Gerbner,
however, was savvy enough to construct a methodology largely im¬
mune to such criticism. His samples of heavy viewers cut across all ages,
incomes, education levels and ethnic backgrounds—and every category
displayed the same tube-induced misconceptions of the world outside.
Needless to say, the networks accept all this as enthusiastically as
they would a list of news-coverage complaints from the Ayatollah
Khomeini. Even so, their responses tend to be tinged with a singular re¬
spect for Gerbner's personal and professional credentials. The man is
no ivory-tower recluse. During World War II, the Budapest-born Gerb¬
ner paracnuted into the mountains of Yugoslavia to join the partisans
fighting the Germans. After the war, he hunted down and personally ar¬
rested scores of high Nazi officials. Nor is Gerbner some videophobic
 Knowledge and Truth 395

vigilante. A Ph.D. in communications, he readily acknowledges TV's

beneficial effects, noting that it has abolished parochialism, reduced iso¬
lation and loneliness and provided the poorest members of society with
cheap, plug-in exposure to experiences they otherwise would not have.
Funding for his research is supported by such prestigious bodies as the
National Institute of Mental Health, the surgeon general's office and the
American Medical Association, and he is called to testify before con¬
gressional committees nearly as often as David Stockman.

Mass Entertainment

When challenging Gerbner, network officials focus less on his findings

and methods than on what they regard as his own misconceptions of
their industry's function. "He's looking at television from the perspec¬
tive of a social scientist rather than considering what is mass entertain¬
ment," says Alfred Schneider, vice president of standards and practices
at ABC. "We strive to balance TV's social effects with what will capture
an audience's interests. If you showed strong men being victimized as
much as women or the elderly, what would comprise the dramatic con¬
flict? If you did a show truly representative of society's total reality, and
nobody watched because it wasn't interesting, what have you
achieved?"
CBS senior vice president Gene Mater also believes that Gerbner is
implicitly asking for the theoretically impossible. "TV is unique in its
problems," says Mater. "Everyone wants a piece of the action. Everyone
feels that their racial or ethnic group is underrepresented or should be
portrayed as they would like the world to perceive them. No popular
entertainment form, including this one, can or should be an accurate re¬
flection of society."
On that point, at least, Gerbner is first to agree; he hardly expects
television entertainment to serve as a mirror image of absolute truth.
But what fascinates him about this communications medium is its
marked difference from all others. In other media, customers carefully
choose what they want to hear or read: a movie, a magazine, a best
seller. In television, notes Gerbner, viewers rarely time in for a particu¬
lar program. Instead, most just habitually turn on the set—and watch
by the clock rather than for a specific show. "Television viewing fulfills
the criteria of a ritual," he says. "It is the only medium that can bring to
people things they otherwise would not select." With such unique
power, believes Gerbner, comes unique responsibility: "No other
medium reaches into every home or has a comparable, cradle-to-grave
influence over what a society learns about itself."
396 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 10.7

Thinking Critically About Television

In your journal, write a one-page response to one of the following questions:
1. According to Harry Waters, George Gerbner believes that "heavy watchers
of the prime-time mirror are receiving a grossly distorted picture of the real
world that they tend to accept more readily than reality itself." How well
does the evidence offered in Waters's article support this belief?
2. This article was written in 1982. Do you think television has changed in the
years since then? Do you have any reason to believe that the "prime-time
mirror is a more accurate reflection of reality today? Keep in mind that many
of the "realities" the article describes—the growth in population of people
over sixty-five, the proportion of various professions in the work force, and
so forth—have changed very little.
3. Can you think of any specific beliefs of yours that have much of their basis
in your television viewing? To what extent do you think Gerbner’s claims may
be exaggerated? Do you know anyone you would consider a "heavy
watcher”? If so, how realistic do you find that person’s beliefs about the
world?

Cynthia Crossen is a Wall Street Journal reporter. Her book Tainted Truth:
The Manipulation of Fact in America reports on the many "scientific, objective"
studies, published under the guise of objectivity, that actually are conducted
to reflect their sponsors' intentions. The following chapter from that book fo¬
cuses on studies designed to influence beliefs about public policy issues.

from False Truth and the Future of the World

by Cynthia Crossen

Common sense, common knowledge and the gospels of environmen¬

talism held that disposable diapers were bad for the earth. Yet a study,
published to great fanfare in the spring of 1990, found that disposable
diapers were actually no worse for the environment than reusable cot¬
ton ones.
This was good news for many parents. Cotton diapers may have
been ecologically correct, but they were also less efficient and less
convenient. Some who bought disposable diapers were guilt-ridden,
embarrassed to be seen toting a 26-pack around the neighborhood!
Now research exonerated them of a crime against nature. They could
love the earth and throw away a dozen plastic-and-chemical-gel diapers
a day.
 Knowledge and Truth 397

The study's sponsor? Procter & Gamble, one of the biggest buyers of
research in the United States and, of course, the country's largest maker
of disposable diapers. The company controls about half the $3.5-billion-
a-year U.S. market with its Pampers and Luvs brands. For several years,
it had been fighting a public relations battle against environmentalists
and the cloth diaper industry. Although the disposable diaper industry,
born in the 1960s, was thriving, the Earth Day mentality had made in¬
roads. Between 1988 and 1990, customers for cloth diapers almost dou¬
bled. Even more ominous for the disposable makers, more than a dozen
state legislatures were considering various bans, taxes and warning la¬
bels on disposable diapers.
A few studies later, the campaign against disposables was all but
dead. Researchers paid by the disposable diaper industry had pro¬
duced a new, improved truth about disposable diapers. Disposables,
symbol of the throwaway society, were environmentally correct. In fact,
they would no longer even be called disposable; henceforth they would
be known as "single-use." The media disseminated the studies' con¬
trarian findings widely. "People Claiming Cloth Diapers Are Clearly
Superior May Be All Wet," said the Louisville (Kentucky) Courier-Journal.
"Grass Isn't Greener on Green Side, Environmentally Conscious
Choices May Be Doing More Harm," said the Cincinnati Enquirer. In
statehouses around the country, diaper legislation withered away. By
early 1992, Gerber Products, the largest supplier of cloth diapers in the
country, said it would close three cloth-weaving operations and lay off
900 workers. "In the past year," Alfred A. Piergallini, Gerber's chairman
and chief executive, said at the time, "there was a dramatic change in
the cloth diaper market caused by reduced environmental concerns
about disposable diapers."
Procter & Gamble's diaper study was a landmark example of the
public policy study, a form of research that increasingly shapes people's
beliefs and decisions on social, political, economic and environmental
questions. Political debates of the 1980s and 1990s on issues from home¬
lessness to garbage to the spotted owl have been driven by research.
The industry that generates this research has developed an unspoken
but almost inviolable rule: Its numbers will anoint the ideology of who¬
ever commissioned the research. The sponsor is rarely surprised or be¬
trayed.
Studies done for public policy debates rank second only to research
done for advertising in their disdain for objectivity and fact. While
in other arenas researchers would be embarrassed to admit their
study was partisan, in public policy they are not. "Who says it has to
be neutral?" challenged an aide to U.S. Representative Fortney H.
Stark about a distorted cable television questionnaire his office had sent
out. Commenting on the same study, the aide later said, "We're proud
Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

that it was biased. Our viewpoint is that cable TV should be re¬

regulated."
The researchers themselves are not evil. They are devoted to their
profession, and they genuinely seek to improve its methods. Yet they
have let their ethical habits slip to a level more often seen among lob¬
byists and public relations executives. A Washington economist, who
asked not to be named because his former employer is still a member of
the House of Representatives, described two studies he did on a hydro¬
electric dam project planned for the home district. "My boss says, 'Write
me the best justification for this project that you can/ So I did this cost-
benefit analysis that made the project look like a gold mine. About a
month later, he calls me in and says, 'Give me the most objective, inde¬
pendent, comprehensive analysis of this project you can/1 came back to
him and said, 'This project is a dog.' He knew how to use me and that's
fine. Researchers are for hire."
Exaggeration, hyperbole, creative projections, wild assumptions
and hand-waving are the building blocks of public policy research,
where people fight for the ear of the people and the good of the world.
Anything goes. Most public policy wars are fought on huge plains,
where people are counted in the millions, economic impacts in the bil¬
lions and the very survival of mankind and the earth may be at stake—
the very places it is most tempting to justify means with ends. Public
policy studies are seldom challenged by either the press or public be¬
cause they address mammoth and complex questions about which
most people have little if any personal experience or knowledge. Nor
has the press, by and large, learned to accord research studies the rou¬
tine skepticism that reporters bring to more obviously self-serving
news releases.
The creative manipulation of public policy studies crosses all politi¬
cal, gender, racial, religious and age lines. Whatever your beliefs and
politics, your team does it. Organizations from Procter & Gamble, the
country's largest advertiser, to the smallest and poorest social action
groups sponsor advocacy research. No result is too absurd or self-
evident to be peddled to the press.

"Rental Housing for Poor Still a Problem, Study Says," announced a

newspaper headline about a study sponsored by two nonprofit advo¬
cacy groups for the poor.

Americans Want to Live to 100 Years, Survey Says; Bar Nursing

Homes, Losing Independence," reported the nonprofit Alliance for Ag¬
ing Research, which advocates more investment in scientific research
about aging.

"Life on Streets Dangerous for Homeless Youth," concluded a study

sponsored by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.
 Knowledge and Truth 399

Public interest groups are masters of the tactical study. Their motives
for their creative numbers are less commercial than industry's, but they
can be just as self-centered. Public interest groups thrive on attention
from the press because that is how they recruit new members. While
business may understate hazards, public interest groups tend to ex¬
aggerate them. "Each group convinces itself that its worthy goals
justify oversimplification to an 'ignorant' public," wrote Daniel E.
Koshland, Jr.
Among life-and-death issues, researchers are not quite so fastidious
about creating perfectly neutral questions for their surveys. A mail sur¬
vey for the environmental guerrilla group Greenpeace asked people's
attitudes on several issues. Among the leading questions was this: "De¬
pletion of Earth's protective ozone layer leads to skin cancers and nu¬
merous other health and environmental problems. Do you support
Greenpeace's demand that DuPont, the world's largest producer of
ozone-destroying chemicals, stop making unneeded ozone-destroying
chemicals immediately?"
But from industry: "Do you favor setting up an additional Consumer
Protection Agency over all the others, or do you favor doing what is
necessary to make the agencies we now have more effective in protect¬
ing the consumer's interests?" asked a survey commissioned by the
Business Roundtable, which was opposing the creation of a federal con¬
sumer protection agency. Seventy-five percent of those surveyed said
they opposed creating such an agency. The survey was released during
the height of congressional debate on the subject.
And from a Connecticut representative to Congress, a body that has
become addicted to questionnaires: Would you support universal
health care if it would mean the loss of thousands of jobs, particularly
in Connecticut?
Legislators know most studies prepared for policy debates are spon¬
sored by a self-interested industry or lobby. What they may not realize
is that such research nevertheless influences the course of events. Occa¬
sionally a piece of research has a decisive influence on the outcome of
the debate—Procter & Gamble's diaper study, for example. But more
often, contradictory studies simply paralyze the decision-making
process, shelving the resolution of immediate problems. "Someone will
produce a study that statistically demonstrates X or Y," said Ray Sentes,
a Canadian political science professor who has studied the effects of as¬
bestos on human health. "So the workers have to rush out and get an
epidemiologist to do a study for them. And so it goes. For ten years we
flash studies at each other. If the practical outcome of a scientific study
ends up being delay of any activity, shouldn't the scientist say, 'You
don't need this study'?" For issues like the health effects of asbestos,
Sentes noted, it would take several studies of thousands of people over
dozens of years to come up with meaningful results. "They don't have
400 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

the time or the money or the data," he said. "So they do these slash-and-
burn studies that get plonked into the middle of the public policy
process."
15 Strategic research has dominated modern debates over abortion,
gun control, family leave, recycling, school choice and the speed limit,
just to name a few. Each issue has its dueling polls. The timber indus¬
try has its polls showing most people wouldn't: sacrifice a single job
to protect an endangered species; and nature groups have their poll
showing that most people support the Endangered Species Act. Pro¬
ponents of school choice have surveys showing that people want it,
and opponents have their surveys showing people do not. Gun control
activists have surveys showing that many people want increased regu¬
lation of guns; the National Rifle Association has surveys showing the
opposite.
The battle over abortion rights has produced hundreds of surveys
showing contrary results. In June 1991, the abortion warrriors—
Planned Parenthood and the National Right to Life Committee—each
produced survey results showing people's opinions of a recent
Supreme Court ruling that the government could prohibit the discus¬
sion of abortion in family planning clinics that received federal funding.
Planned Parenthood's survey asked this question: "Do you favor or op¬
pose that Supreme Court decision preventing clinic doctors and med¬
ical personnel from discussing abortion ... ?" Sixty-five percent said
they opposed the ruling.
The other survey first asked people if they favored or opposed the
Supreme Court ruling. The survey described the ruling as "the federal
government is not required to use taxpayer funds for family planning
programs to perform, counsel or refer for abortion as a method of fam¬
ily planning." The Supreme Court, of course, had said no such thing:
the question was whether the government should be permitted, not re¬
quired, to finance family planning programs where abortion was dis¬
cussed. No one was talking about abortion as a method of family
planning. And the Supreme Court was ruling on whether such clinics
could discuss, not perform, abortions. Even so, only 48 percent said
they favored the court's decision. Then the survey asked, "If you knew
that any government funds not used for family-planning programs that
provide abortion will be given to other family-planning programs that
provide contraception and other preventive methods of family¬
planning, would you then favor or oppose the Supreme Court's rul¬
ing?" Here the group got the mandate it was seeking, the one they
pitched to the press: 69 percent said they favored the decision. In hear¬
ings before the House of Representatives, which was considering an
amendment that would prevent the regulation from being enforced, the
National Right to Life poll was cited. The amendment was defeated.
Since bigger numbers almost always mean bigger allocations or
 Knowledge and Truth 401

more attention, most of the numbers flying around policy debates ex-
aggerate on the high side. The National Association for Prenatal Addic¬
tion Research and Education says as many as 375,000 babies who may
have been affected by drugs are born every year; that is, 375,000 babies
whose mothers ingested either alcohol or a drug at one point in their
pregnancy. In the late 1970s, the American Cancer Society predicted that
cancer would claim the lives of at least 8.5 million Americans in the
1980s. In fact, between 1980 and 1990, 4.5 million Americans died of
cancer. And while it costs only $3,205 to provide disposable cups, forks,
plates, etc., for one school for one year, it costs a staggering $12,413 for
reusable material—or so argued a Tennessee school district fighting the
mandated use of reusable materials. The disposable figure included the
price of buying the materials, the labor of handling them and their
waste disposal; the figure for reusables included the cost of the materi¬
als, the labor to wash them, the cost of the washing equipment and the
water. It did not compare the cost of making the reusables and dispos¬
ables, nor did it take into account environmental costs. Furthermore, if
it is so economical to use disposables, why have they not replaced glass,
china and stainless steel in every home in America?
"Even if congressmen discount for biases in the material they are
given," wrote James Payne, "this does not solve the problem. When you
cut a 50-fold exaggeration in half, you are still left believing a 25-fold ex¬
aggeration."
The size of the homeless population has been the subject of several
studies whose estimates range from 230,000 to 3 million. Homeless ad¬
vocates have estimated 2 million to 3 million people have been home¬
less at some time during the previous year. (On any particular night,
advocates say, the number of homeless may be closer to half a million
to one million.) The advocates' number was derived from estimating
the percentage of the population that was homeless—1 percent—and
building in a huge margin of error. Martha Burt of the Urban Institute
said that the last time 1 percent of the population was homeless was in
the heart of the Depression. "Nineteen thirty-three is what 1 percent
homeless looks like," she said.
In 1984, the Department of Housing and Urban Development esti¬
mated there were between 250,000 and 300,000 homeless. That figure
was developed from sixty local experts estimating how many homeless
they had in their cities. Their answers were added together and then
projected to the nation. In 1987, the Urban Institute estimated 500,000 to
1,000,000 homeless. That number was derived from sampling homeless
shelters and soup kitchens in cities with populations of more than
100,000 and then doing elaborate adjustments.
In March 1990, the Census Bureau sent 15,000 census takers out one
night—S night, it was called, for streets and shelters—to count the
homeless. They found 230,000. Homeless advocates quickly disputed
402 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

the figure, saying that with a few exceptions the census takers did not
go to any city with a population of less than 50,000: they did not count
any homeless people they saw in alleyways or streets; and they, like
other homeless researchers, had no way of counting the people sleeping
on the couch or floor of someone's house who might be looking for shel¬
ter the following night. Research built on shelter data is inherently
skewed because a huge part of the homeless population—single people
who are highly impaired and chronically homeless—tend not to use
shelters.
In November 1993, another count of the homeless in two big cities—
New York and Philadelphia—was released. This study counted the
homeless using computer records of Social Security numbers at city
shelters. The study found that 3.3 percent of New York's population
had stayed in a shelter sometime over the past five years. The stay could
be as short as one day Should one one-day stay sometime in the past
five years define a person as homeless?
It is not possible to count the homeless population precisely; they
are transient, wary of authority and sometimes mentally ill or addicted
to drugs. Sadly, the issue of counting the homeless long ago over¬
whelmed the moral debate on what to do about people living in
the street, as though without agreeing on the numbers there could be no
agreement that homelessness is a problem. A decade after the plight of
the homeless appeared on the national agenda, there is still a sizable
homeless population. Statistical formulas do not solve our problems
any faster or better, and they cannot eliminate politics, as the political
scientist Kenneth Prewitt points out. They simply push politics back
one stop, to disputes about methods: "Arguments about numerical
quotas, availability pools and demographic imbalance become a substi¬
tute for democratic discussion of the principles of equity and justice."
25 In public policy debates and deliberations, words like decency, right
and wrong, peace, fairness, trust and hope have lost their force. Num¬
bers, which can offer so much illumination and guidance if used pro¬
fessionally and ethically, have become the tools of advocacy. Even if
their cause is worthy, people who massage data undermine the power
and purity of statistics that may be crucial to future decisions. There are
numbers we will never know, and we should admit it. It is essential to
understand the homeless before making policy about them. But in this
case, as in so many others in public policy, understanding is not the
same as counting.
 Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs 403

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 10.8

Evaluating “Scientific Studies”
After you have read “False Truth and the Future of the World," respond to any
one of these questions in your journal.
1. In the introduction to her book, Crossen states that her own survey found
that while 76 percent of her respondents asreed that "you can find a scien¬
tific study to prove just about anythins you want to prove," 86 percent said
that "references to scientific research in a story increased its credibility.”
Why are scientific studies used so extensively by the media? Do you think
such studies increase a news story's credibility?
2. Crossen sives several examples showing that the way a survey question is
worded influences the kinds of responses people make to it. Do you think a
survey can be conducted in a completely objective way? Why or why not?
3. Crossen suggests that competing, contradictory studies effectively serve to
prevent any progress on solving serious social problems, such as homeless¬
ness. Is it also true that competing beliefs among politicians and others in
power tend to stymie real solutions? Can you imagine any way such com¬
peting beliefs could be combined to discover something closer to the
"truth"?

Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs

When you write, you are presenting your beliefs. No matter what its form—
letters, college papers, business documents, even stories and poems—your
written expression states what you believe. When you write, you present
your beliefs in three ways: reports, inferences, and judgments. Your choice of
words establishes which of the three you are using:

■ Report: My bus was late today.

■ Inference: My bus will probably be late tomorrow.
■ Judgment: The bus system is unreliable.

Now try to identify which of the three is being used in these statements:

1. Each modem nuclear warhead has over one hundred times the explosive
power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
2. With all the billions of planets in the universe, the odds are that there are
other forms of life in the cosmos.
3. In the long run, the energy needs of the world will best be met by solar en¬
ergy technology rather than nuclear energy or fossil fuels.
 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

As you examine these various statements, you can see that they provide
readers with different types of information. For example, the first statement in
each list reports aspects of the world that can be verified—that is, checked for
accuracy. Appropriate investigation can determine whether the bus was ac¬
tually late today and whether modern nuclear warheads really have the
power attributed to them. When you describe the world in ways that can be
verified through investigation, you are reporting factual information about the
world.

Reporting Factual Information: describing the world in ways

that can be verified through investigation.

Looking at the second statement in each list, you can see that each pro¬
vides a different sort of information from the first one. These statements can¬
not be verified. There is no way to investigate and determine with certainty
whether the bus will indeed be late tomorrow or whether there is in fact life
on other planets. Although these conclusions may be based on factual infor¬
mation, they go beyond factual information to make statements about what
is not currently known. When you describe the world in ways based on fac¬
tual information, yet go beyond this information to make statements regard¬
ing what is not currently known, you are said to be inferring conclusions
about the world.

Inferring: describing the world in ways that are based on factual

information, yet going beyond this information to make
statements about what is not currently known.

Finally, as you examine the third statement in each list, it is apparent that
these statements are different from both factual reports and inferences. They
describe the world in ways that express the speaker's evaluation—of the bus
service and of energy sources. These evaluations are based on certain stan¬
dards (criteria) that the speaker is using to judge the bus service as unreliable
and solar energy as more promising than nuclear energy or fossil fuels. When
you describe the world in ways that express your evaluation on the basis of
certain criteria, you are said to be judging.

Judging: describing the world in ways that express an

evaluation based on certain criteria.
 Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs 405

You continually use these various ways of describing and organizing

your world—reporting, inferring, and judging—to make sense of your expe¬
rience. In most instances, you are not aware that you are actually performing
these activities, nor are you usually aware of the differences among them. Yet
these three activities work together to help you see the world as a complete
picture.

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 10.9

Distinguishing Reports, Inferences, Judgments

1. Write six sentences: two as reports, two as inferences, and two as judg¬
ments.
2. Locate a short article from a newspaper or magazine and identify the re¬
ports, inferences, and judgments it contains.

Reporting Factual Information

The statements written as reports express the most accurate beliefs you have
about the world. Factual beliefs have earned this distinction because they are
verifiable, usually with one or more of the senses. For example, consider the
following factual statement: That young woman is wearing a brown hat in the
rain. This statement about an event in the world is considered factual because
it can be verified by your immediate sense experience—what you can (in
principle or in theory) see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. It is important to say in
principle or in theory, because often you do not use all of your relevant senses
to check out what you are experiencing. Look again at the example of a fac¬
tual statement: you would normally be satisfied to see this event, without in¬
sisting on touching the hat or giving the person a physical examination. If
necessary, however, you could perform these additional actions—in principle
or in theory.
You use the same reasoning when you believe other people's factual
statements that you are not in a position to check immediately. For instance:

■ The Great Wall of China is more than fifteen hundred miles long.
■ There are large mountains and craters on the moon.
■ Your skin is covered with germs.

You consider these factual statements because even though you cannot
verify them with your senses at the moment, you could in principle or in
theory verify them with your senses if you were flown to China, if you
were rocketed to the moon, or if you were to examine your skin with a
 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

powerful microscope. The process of verifying factual statements involves

identifying the sources of information on which they are based and evaluating
the reliability of these sources, topics examined in some detail earlier in this
chapter.
You communicate factual information to others by means of reports. A re¬
port is a description of something that has been experienced, then communi¬
cated in as accurate and complete a way as possible. Through reports you can
share your sense experiences with other people, and this mutual sharing en¬
ables you to learn much more about the world than if you were confined to
knowing only what you experience. The recording (making records) of fac¬
tual reports also makes possible the accumulation of knowledge acquired by
previous generations.
Because factual reports play such an important role in the exchange and
accumulation of information about the world, it is important that they be as
accurate and complete as possible. This brings us to a problem. We have al¬
ready seen in previous chapters that our perceptions and observations often
are not accurate or complete. This means that often when we think we are
making true factual reports, the reports actually are inaccurate or incomplete.
For instance, consider our earlier factual statement,/: That young woman is
wearing a brown hat in the rain. Here are questions you could ask concerning
the accuracy of the statement:

■ Is the woman really young, or does she merely look young?

■ Is the person really a woman, or a man disguised as a woman?
■ Is that really a hat the woman is wearing, or something else (such as a
helmet or a paper bag)?

Of course, there are methods you could use to clear up these questions with
more detailed observations. Can you describe some of these methods?
Besides difficulties with observations, the "facts" that you see in the
world actually depend on more general beliefs that you have about how the
world operates. Consider this question: Why did the man's body fall from the top
of the building to the sidewalk? Having had some general science courses, you
might say something like "The body was simply obeying the law of gravity,"
and you would consider this a "factual statement." But how did people ac¬
count for this sort of event before Newton formulated the law of gravity?
Some popular responses might have included the following:

■ Things always fall down, not up.

■ The spirit in the body wanted to join with the spirit of the earth.

When people made statements like these and others, such as "Humans
can t fly, they thought that they were making "factual statements." In¬
creased knowledge and understanding have since shown these "factual be-
 Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs 407

liefs" to be inaccurate, and so they have been replaced by "better" beliefs.

These "better beliefs" explain the world in a way that is more accurate and
predictable. Will many of the beliefs now considered to be factually accurate
also be replaced by beliefs that are more accurate and predictable? If history
is any indication, this will most certainly happen. Newton's formulations
have already been replaced by Einstein's, based on the latter's theory of rel¬
ativity. Einstein's have been refined and modified as well and may be re¬
placed someday.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 10.10

Evaluating Factual Information

1. Locate and carefully read an article that deals with a major social issue.
2. Summarize the main idea and key points of the article.
3. Describe the factual statements used to support the main idea.
4. Evaluate the accuracy of the factual information.
5. Evaluate the reliability of the sources of the factual information.

Inferring
Imagine yourself in the following situations:

1. It is 2:00 A.M. and your roommate comes crashing into the room. Tie stag¬
gers to his bed and falls across it, dropping (and breaking) a nearly empty
whiskey bottle. Startled, you gasp, "What's the matter?" With alcohol
fumes blasting from his mouth, he mumbles: "I jus' wanna hadda widdel
drink!" What do you conclude?
2. Your roommate has just learned that she passed a math exam for which
she had done absolutely no studying. Humming the refrain, "I did it my
way," she comes dancing over to you with a huge grin on her face and
says, "Let me buy you dinner to celebrate!" What do you conclude about
how she is feeling?
3. It is midnight and the library is about to close. As you head for the door,
you spy your roommate shuffling along in an awkward waddle. His coat
bulges out in front as if he's pregnant. When you ask, "What's going on?"
he gives you a glare and hisses, "Shhh!" Just before he reaches the door, a
pile of books slides from under his coat and crashes to the floor. What do
you conclude?

In these examples, it would be reasonable to make the following conclusions:

408 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

1. Your roommate is drunk.

2. Your roommate is happy.
3. Your roommate is stealing library books.

Although these conclusions are reasonable, they are not factual reports; they
are inferences. You have not directly experienced your roommate's "drunken¬
ness," "happiness," or "stealing." Instead, you havo inferred it on the basis of
your roommate's behavior and the circumstances. What clues in these situa¬
tions might lead to these conclusions? One way of understanding the infer¬
ential nature of these views is to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Have you ever pretended to be drunk when you weren't? Could other
people tell?
2. Have you ever pretended to be happy when you weren't? Could other
people tell?
3. Have you ever been accused of stealing something when you were per¬
fectly innocent? How did this happen?

From these examples you can see that whereas factual beliefs can in prin¬
ciple be verified by direct observation, inferential beliefs go beyond what can
be directly observed. For instance, in the examples just given, your observa¬
tion of certain of your roommate's actions led you to infer things that you
were not observing directly—"He's drunk," "She's happy," "He's stealing
books."
Making such simple inferences is something you do all the time. It is so
automatic that usually you are not even aware that you are going beyond
your immediate observations, and you may have difficulty drawing a sharp
line between what you observe and what you infer. Making such inferences en¬
ables you to see the world as a complete picture, to fill in the blanks and
round out the fragmentary sensations being presented to your senses. Pre¬
senting your inferences in writing paints a complete picture for your readers,
filling in the blanks and presenting them with your beliefs as a complete pic¬
ture.
Your writing may also include predictions of what will be taking place in
the near future. Predictions and expectations are also inferences because vou
attempt to determine what is currently unknown from what is already
known.
It is possible that your inferences may be mistaken; in fact, they fre¬
quently are. You may infer that the woman sitting next to you is wearing
two earrings and then discover that she has only one. You may expect the
class to end at noon and find that the teacher lets you go early—or late. In the
last section, we concluded that not even factual beliefs are ever absolutely
certain. Comparatively speaking, inferential beliefs are a great deal more un¬
certain than factual beliefs, and it is important to distinguish between the
two.
 Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs 409

The distinction between what is observed and what is inferred is paid

particular attention in courtroom settings, where defense lawyers usually
want witnesses to describe only what they observed—not what they inferred as
part of the observation. When a witness includes an inference such as "I saw
him steal it," the lawyer may object that the statement represents a "conclu¬
sion of the witness" and move to have the observation stricken from the
record. For example, imagine that you are a defense attorney listening to the
following testimony. At what points would you make the objection: "This is
a conclusion of the witness"?

I saw Harvey running down the street, right after he knocked the old
lady down. He had her purse in his hand and was trying to escape as
fast as he could. He was really scared. I wasn't surprised because Har¬
vey has always taken advantage of others. It's not the first time that
he's stolen either, I can tell you that. Just last summer he robbed the
poor box at St. Anthony's. He was bragging about it for weeks.

Finally, you should be aware that even though in theory facts and infer¬
ences can be distinguished, in practice it is almost impossible to communicate
with others in speech or writing by sticking only to factual observations. A
reasonable approach is to state your inference along with the observable evi¬
dence on which the inference is based (e.g., John seemed happy because ...).
Our language has an entire collection of terms (seems, appears, is likely, etc.)
that signal we are making an inference and not expressing an observable fact,
and thoughtful writers use these words carefully and deliberately.
Many of the predictions that you make are inferences based on your past
experiences and the information that you presently have. Even when there
appear to be sound reasons supporting them, these inferences are often
wrong due to incomplete information or unanticipated events. The fact that
even people considered by society to be "experts" regularly make inaccurate
predictions with absolute certainty should encourage you to exercise caution
when presenting your beliefs as inferences. Here are some examples:

"So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto un
known lands of any value." —THE advisory committee to king FERDINAND and queen Isabella
OF SPAIN, BEFORE COLUMBUS'S VOYAGE IN 1492

"What will the soldiers and sailors, what will the common people say to 'George Wash¬
ington, President of the United States'? They will despise him to all eternity." -john
ADAMS, 1789

"What use could the company make of an electrical toy?" -western union's rejection of

the telephone IN 1878

410 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not for the near future in spite of
many rumors to that effect." —a 1902 article in harper's weekly

You ain t goin' nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck." —jim denny,
GRAND OLE OPRY MANAGER, FIRING ELVIS PRESLEY AFTER ONE PERFORMANCE, I954

Examine the following list of statements, noting which are factual beliefs
(based on observations) and which are inferential beliefs (conclusions that go
beyond observations). For each factual statement, describe how you might go
about verifying the information. For each inferential statement, describe a
factual observation on which the inference could be based. (Note: Some state¬
ments may contain both factual beliefs and inferential beliefs.)

■ When my leg starts to ache, that means snow is on the way.

■ The grass is wet—it must have rained last night.
■ I think that it's pretty clear from the length of the skid marks that the
accident was caused by that person's driving too fast.
■ Fifty men lost their lives in the construction of the Queensboro Bridge.
■ Nancy said she wasn't feeling well yesterday—I'll bet that she's out sick
today.

Now consider the following situations. What inferences might you be in¬
clined to make on the basis of what you are observing? How could you in¬
vestigate the accuracy of your inference?

■ A student in your class is consistently late for class.

■ You see a friend of yours driving a new car.
■ An instructor asks the same student to stay after class several times.
■ You don't receive any birthday cards.

So far, we have been exploring relatively simple inferences. Many of the

inferences people make, however, are much more complicated. In fact, much
of our knowledge about the world rests on our ability to make complicated
inferences in a systematic and logical way. However, just because an infer¬
ence is more complicated does not mean that it is more accurate; in fact, the
opposite is often the case. One of the masters of inference is the legendary
Sherlock Holmes. In the following passage. Holmes makes an astonishing
number of inferences on meeting Dr. Watson. Study Holmes's conclusions
carefully. Are they reasonable? Can you explain how he reaches these con¬
clusions?

"You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our first meet¬

ing, that you had come from Afghanistan."
"You were told, no doubt."
 Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs 411

"Nothing of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan. From

long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind that I
arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps.
There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran, 'Here is a
gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly
an army doctor, then. He is just come from the tropics, for his face is
dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair.
He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says
clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnat¬
ural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have
seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in
Afghanistan.' The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I
then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were aston¬
ished." —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 10.11

Analyzing an Incorrect Inference

Describe an experience in which you made an incorrect inference that resulted
in serious consequences. For example, it misht have been a situation in which
you mistakenly accused someone, an accident based on a miscalculation, a
poor decision based on an inaccurate prediction, or some other event. Ana¬
lyze that experience by answerins the following questions:

1. What was (were) your mistaken inference(s)?

2. What was the factual evidence on which you based your inference(s)?
3. Looking back, what could you have done to avoid the erroneous inference(s)?

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 10.12

Scientific Inferences
The following essay, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," was written by a geology
professor at Harvard University who also writes widely on scientific themes for
nonscientific audiences. This essay illustrates the ongoing process by which
natural scientists use inferences to discover factual information and to con¬
struct theories explaining this factual information. Read the selection carefully,
then answer the questions that follow.
1. According to Stephen Jay Gould, author of the essay, evolution is both a sci¬
entific "fact" and a scientific "theory” asserting that all life forms are the re¬
sult of a process of gradual development and differentiation over time,
much like the progressive growth of tree branches from the central trunk. In
contrast, creationism asserts that all basic forms of life were brought into
412 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

being in a sudden act by a supernatural creator. From your reading of the ar¬
ticle, explain what you understand about the theory of evolution and about
creationism.
2. Gould defines "facts" as the "world’s data" and refers to observing an apple
fall from the tree as Isaac Newton is alleged to have done. Identify some of
the facts Gould presents in his writing as evidence to support the theory of
evolution. y
3. Gould defines "theories" as "structures of ideas that explain and interpret
facts," such as Newton’s theory of gravitation introduced to explain facts like
falling apples. In addition to facts, Gould states, the theory of evolution is
supported by reasonable inferences. Identify the inferences he cites as evi¬
dence.

from Evolution As Fact and Theory

by Stephen Jay Gould

Kirtley Mather, who died last year at age 89, was a pillar of both science
and the Christian religion in America and one of my dearest friends.
The difference of half a century in our ages evaporated before our com¬
mon interests. The most curious thing we shared was a battle we each
fought at the same age. For Kirtley had gone to Tennessee with Clarence
Darrow to testify for evolution at the Scopes trial of 1925. When I think
that we are enmeshed again in the same struggle for one of the best doc¬
umented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science, I
don't know whether to laugh or cry.
According to idealized principles of scientific discourse, the arousal
of dormant issues should reflect fresh data that give renewed life to
abandoned notions. Those outside the current debate may therefore be
excused for suspecting that creationists have come up with something
new, or that evolutionists have generated some serious internal trouble.
But nothing has changed; the creationists have not a single new fact or
argument. Darrow and Bryan were at least more entertaining than we
lesser antagonists today. The rise of creationism is politics, pure and
simple, it represents one issue (and by no means the major concern) of
the resurgent evangelical right. Arguments that seemed kooky just a
decade ago have re-entered the mainstream.

Creationism Is Not Science

The basic attack of the creationists falls apart on two general counts be¬
fore we even reach the supposed factual details of their complaints
against evolution. First, they play upon a vernacular misunderstanding
of the word "theory" to convey the false impression that we evolution-
 Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs 413

ists are covering up the rotten core of our edifice. Second, they misuse a
popular philosophy of science to argue that they are behaving scientif¬
ically in attacking evolution. Yet the same philosophy demonstrates
that their own belief is not science, and that "scientific creationism" is
therefore meaningless and self-contradictory, a superb example of what
Orwell called "newspeak."
In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"—
part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory
to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evo¬
lution is "only" a theory, and intense debate now rages about many as¬
pects of the theory. If evolution is less than a fact, and scientists can't
even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can
we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an
evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was
campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and
it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science—that is,
not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once
was."
Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are
different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts
are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and in¬
terpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories
to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but
apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome.
And human beings evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so
by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discov¬
ered.
Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs
of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and
achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world.
Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists of¬
ten do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves
favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree
that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose
that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but possibility does not merit
equal time in physics classrooms.
Evolutionists have been clear about this distinction between fact and
theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always ac¬
knowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mech¬
anisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually
emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accom¬
plishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory-
natural selection—to explain the mechanism of evolution. He wrote in
The Descent of Man: "I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show
that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural
414 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

selection had been the chief agent of change. ... Hence if I have erred
in ... having exaggerated its [natural selection's] power ... I have at
least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of
separate creations."
Thus Darwin acknowledged the provisional nature of natural selec¬
tion while affirming the fact of evolution. The fruitful theoretical debate
that Darwin initiated has never ceased. From the 1940s through the
1960s, Darwin's own theory of natural selection did achieve a tempo¬
rary hegemony that it never enjoyed in his lifetime. But renewed debate
characterizes our decade, and while no biologist questions the impor¬
tance of natural selection, many now doubt its ubiquity. In particular,
many evolutionists argue that substantial amounts of genetic change
may not be subject to natural selection and may spread through popu¬
lations at random. Others are challenging Darwin's linking of natural
selection with gradual, imperceptible change through all intermediary
degrees, they are arguing that most evolutionary events may occur far
more rapidly than Darwin envisioned.
Scientists regard debates on fundamental issues of theory as a sign of
intellectual health and a source of excitement. Science is—and how else
can I say it?—most fun when it plays with interesting ideas, examines
their implications, and recognizes that old information may be ex¬
plained in surprisingly new ways. Evolutionary theory is now enjoying
this uncommon vigor. Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been
led to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it
happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evo¬
lutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creation¬
ists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the
common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that we
now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.
io Using another invalid argument, creationists claim that "the dogma
of separate creations," as Darwin characterised it a century ago, is a sci¬
entific theory meriting equal time with evolution in high school biology
curricula. But a prevailing viewpoint among philosophers of science be¬
lies this creationist argument. Philosopher Karl Popper has argued for
decades that the primary criterion of science is the falsifiability of its
theories. We can never prove absolutely, but we can falsify. A set of ideas
that cannot, in principle, be falsified is not science.
The entire creationist argument involves little more than a rhetorical
attempt to falsify evolution by presenting supposed contradictions
among its supporters. Their brand of creationism, they claim, is "scien¬
tific" because it follows the Popperian model in trying to demolish evo¬
lution. Yet Popper's argument must apply in both directions. One does
not become a scientist by the simple act of trying to falsify another sci¬
entific system; one has to present an alternative system that also meets
Popper's criterion—it too must be falsifiable in principle.
 Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs 415

"Scientific creationism" is a self-contradictory, nonsense phrase pre¬

cisely because it cannot be falsified. I can envision observations and ex¬
periments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know, but I
cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon
their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science. Lest I seem
harsh or rhetorical, I quote creationism's leading intellectual, Duane
Gish, Ph.D., from his recent (1978) book Evolution? The Fossils Say No!
"By creation we mean the bringing into being by a supernatural Creator
of the basic kinds of plants and animals by the process of sudden, or flat,
creation. We do not know how the Creator created, what processes He
used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the nat¬
ural universe [Gish's italics]. This is why we refer to creation as special
creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigations anything about
the creative processes used by the Creator." Pray tell. Dr. Gish, in the
light of your last sentence, what then is "scientific" creationism?

The Fact of Evolution

Our confidence that evolution occurred centers upon three general ar¬
guments. First, we have abundant, direct, observational evidence of
evolution in action, from both the field and the laboratory. It ranges
from countless experiments on change in nearly everything about fruit
flies subjected to artificial selection in the laboratory to the famous
British moths that turned black when industrial soot darkened the trees
upon which they rest. (The moths gain protection from sharp-sighted
bird predators by blending into the background.) Creationists do not
deny these observations; how could they? Creationists have tightened
their act. They now argue that God only created "basic kinds," and al¬
lowed for limited evolutionary meandering within them. Thus toy poo¬
dles and Great Danes come from the dog kind and moths can change
color, but nature cannot convert a dog to a cat or a monkey to a man.
The second and third arguments for evolution—the case for major
changes—do not involve direct observation of evolution in action. They
rest upon inference, but are no less secure for that reason. Major evolu¬
tionary change requires too much time for direct observation on the
scale of recorded human history. All historical sciences rest upon infer¬
ence, and evolution is no different from geology, cosmology, or human
history in this respect. In principle, we cannot observe processes that
operated in the past. We must infer them from results that still survive:
living and fossil organisms for evolution, documents and artifacts for
human history, strata and topography for geology.
The second argument—that the imperfection of nature reveals evo¬
lution-strikes many people as ironic, for they feel that evolution
should be most elegantly displayed in the nearly perfect adaptation ex-
416 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

pressed by some organisms—the camber of a gull's wing, or butterflies

that cannot be seen in ground litter because they mimic leaves so pre¬
cisely. But perfection could be imposed by a wise creator or evolved by
natural selection. Perfection covers the tracks of past history. And past
history the evidence of descent—is our mark of evolution.
Evolution lies exposed in the imperfections that record a history of de¬
scent. Why should a rat run, a bat fly, or porpoise swim, and I type this
essay with structures built of the same bones unless we all inherited
them from a common ancestor? An engineer, starting from scratch,
could design better limbs in each case. Why should all the large native
mammals of Australia be marsupials, unless they descended from a
common ancestor isolated on this island continent? Marsupials are not
better," or ideally suited for Australia; many have been wiped out by
placental mammals imported by man from other continents. This prin¬
ciple of imperfection extends to all historical sciences. When we recog¬
nize the etymology of September, October, November, and December
(seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, from the Latin), we know that two
additional items (January and February) must have been added to an
original calendar of ten months.
The third argument is more direct: transitions are often found in the
fossil record. Preserved transitions are not common—and should not
be, according to our understanding of evolution ... —but they are not
entirely wanting, as creationists often claim. The lower jaw of reptiles
contains several bones, that of mammals only one. The nonmammalian
jawbones are reduced, step by step, in mammalian ancestors until they
become tiny nubbins located at the back of the jaw. The "hammer" and
the "anvil" bones of the mammalian ear are descendants of these nub¬
bins. How could such a transition be accomplished?, the creationists
ask. Surely a bone is either entirely in the jaw or in the ear. Yet paleon¬
tologists have discovered two transitional lineages of therapsids (the
so-called mammal-like reptiles) with a double jaw joint—one com¬
posed of the old quadrate and articular bones (soon to become the ham¬
mer and anvil), the other of the squamosal and dentary bones (as in
modern mammals). For that matter, what better transitional form could
we desire than the oldest human, Australopithecus afarensis, with its ape¬
like palate, its human upright stance, and a cranial capacity larger than
any ape's of the same body size but a full 1,000 cubic centimeters below
ours? If God made each of the half dozen human species discovered in
ancient rocks, why did he create an unbroken temporal sequence of pro¬
gressively more modern features—increasing cranial capacity, reduced
face and teeth, larger body size? Did he create a mimic evolution and
test our faith thereby?
 Writing Thoughtfully About Beliefs 417

Conclusion

I am both angry at and amused by the creationists; but mostly I am

deeply sad. Sad for many reasons. Sad because so many people who re¬
spond to creationist appeals are troubled for the right reason, but vent¬
ing their anger at the wrong target. It is true that scientists have often
been dogmatic and elitist. It is true that we have often allowed the
white-coated, advertising image to represent us—"Scientists say that
Brand X cures bunions ten times faster than...." We have not fought it
adequately because we derive benefits from appearing as a new priest¬
hood. It is also true that faceless bureaucratic state power intrudes more
and more into our lives and removes choices that should belong to in¬
dividuals and communities. I can understand that requiring that evolu¬
tion be taught in the schools might be seen as one more insult on all
these grounds. But the culprit is not, and cannot be, evolution or any
other fact of the natural world. Identify and fight your legitimate ene¬
mies by all means, but we are not among them.
I am sad because the practical result of this brouhaha will not be ex¬
panded coverage to include creationism (that would also make me sad),
but the reduction or excision of evolution from high school curricula.
Evolution is one of the half dozen "great ideas" developed by science.
It speaks to the profound issues of genealogy that fascinate all of us—
the "roots" phenomenon writ large. Where did we come from? Where
did life arise? How did it develop? How are organisms related? It forces
us to think, ponder, and wonder. Shall we deprive millions of this
knowledge and once again teach biology as a set of dull and uncon¬
nected facts, without the thread that weaves diverse material into a sup¬
ple unity?
But most of all I am saddened by a trend I am just beginning to dis¬
cern among my colleagues. I sense that some now wish to mute the
healthy debate about theory that has brought new life to evolutionary
biology. It provides grist for creationist mills, they say, even if only by
distortion. Perhaps we should lie low and rally around the flag of strict
Darwinism, at least for the moment—a kind of old-time religion on our
part.
But we should borrow another metaphor and recognize that we too
have to tread a straight and narrow path, surrounded by roads to perdi¬
tion. For if we ever begin to suppress our search to understand nature,
to quench our own intellectual excitement in a misguided effort to pre¬
sent a united front where it does not and should not exist, then we are
truly lost.
418 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

Judging
Identify and write a description of a friend you have, a course you have
taken, and the college you attend. Be sure your descriptions are specific and
include what you think about the friend, the course, and the college.

1- ---is a friend I have. He/she is ...

2- ---is a course I have taken. It was ...
3- ---is the college I attend. It is ...

Now review your writing. Does it include factual descriptions? Note any
factual information that can be verified. In addition to factual reports, your
writing may contain inferences based on factual information. Can you iden¬
tify any inferences? In addition to inferences, your writing may also include
judgments about the person, the course, and the school—descriptions that
express your evaluation based on certain criteria. Facts and inferences are de¬
signed to help you figure out what is actually happening (or will happen); the
purpose of judgments is to express your evaluation about what is happening
(or will happen). For example:

■ My new car has broken down three times in the first six months. (Factual re¬
port)
■ My new car will probably continue to have difficulties. (Inference)
■ My new car is a lemon. (Judgment)

When you write that your new car is a "lemon," you are presenting a
judgment based on certain criteria you have in mind. For instance, a "lemon"
is usually a newly purchased item with which you have repeated problems—
generally an automobile. To take another example of judging, consider the
following statements:

■ Carla always does her work thoroughly and completes it on time. (Factual re¬
port)

■ Carla will probably continue to do her work in this fashion. (Inference)

■ Carla is a very responsible person. (Judgment)

By judging Carla to be responsible, you are evaluating her on the basis of

the criteria or standards that you believe indicate a responsible person. One
such criterion is completing assigned work on time. Can you identify addi¬
tional criteria for judging someone to be responsible?
Review your previous descriptions of a friend, a course, and your col¬
lege. Can you identify any judgments in your description?

1. Judgments about your friend.

2. Judgments about your course.
3. Judgments about your college.
 Judging 419

For each judgment you have listed, identify the criteria on which the
judgment is based.

1. Criteria for judgments about your friend.

2. Criteria for judgments about your course.
3. Criteria for judgments about your college.

Differences in Judgments
Many of our disagreements with other people focus on differences in judg¬
ments. To write thoughtfully, you need to approach such differences in judg¬
ments intelligently by following these guidelines:

■ Make explicit the criteria or standards used as a basis for the judgment.
■ Try to establish the reasons that justify these criteria.

For instance, if I write "Professor Andrews is an excellent teacher," I am

basing my judgment on certain criteria of teaching excellence. Once these
standards are made explicit, they can be discussed to see whether they make
sense and what justifies them. Of course, my idea of what makes an excellent
teacher may be different from someone else's, and I can test my conclusion
by comparing my criteria with those of other class members. When disagree¬
ments occur, my only hope for resolution is to use the two steps just identi¬
fied.
In short, not all judgments are equally good or equally poor. The credi¬
bility of a judgment depends on the criteria used to make the judgment and
on the evidence or reasons that support these criteria. For example, there may
be legitimate disagreements about judgments on the following points:

■ Who was the greatest United States president?

■ Which movie deserves the Oscar this year?
■ Which is the best baseball team this year?

However, in these and countless other cases, the quality of judgments de¬
pends on presenting the criteria used for the competing judgments and then
demonstrating that your candidate best meets those criteria by providing
supporting evidence and reasons. With this approach, you can often engage
in intelligent discussion and establish which judgments are best supported
by the evidence.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 10.13

Analyzing Judgments
Review the following passages, which illustrate various judgments. For each
passage, do the following:
1. Identify the evaluative criteria on which the judgments are based.
420 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

2. Describe the reasons or evidence the author uses to support the criteria.
3. Explain whether you asree or disagree with the judgments and give your ra¬
tionale.

One widely held misconception concerning pizza should be laid to rest.

Although it may be characterized as fast food, pizza is not junk food.
Especially when it is made with fresh ingredients, pizza fulfills our ba¬
sic nutritional requirements. The crust provides carbohydrates; from
the cheese and meat or fish comes protein; and the tomatoes, herbs,
onions, and garlic supply vitamins and minerals. —Louis Philip
Salamone, "Pizza: Fast Food, Not Junk Food"

Let us return to the question of food. Responsible agronomists report

that before the end of the year millions of people if unaided might
starve to death. Half a billion deaths by starvation is not an uncommon
estimate. Even though the United States has done more than any other
nation to feed the hungry, our relative affluence makes us morally vul¬
nerable in the eyes of other nations and in our own eyes. Garrett
Hardin, who has argued for a "lifeboat" ethic of survival (if you take all
the passengers aboard, everybody drowns), admits that the decision
not to feed all the hungry requires of us "a very hard psychological ad¬
justment." Indeed it would. It has been estimated that the 3.5 million
tons of fertilizer spread on American golf courses and lawns could pro¬
vide up to 30 million tons of food in overseas agricultural production.
The nightmarish thought intrudes itself. If we as a nation allow people
to starve while we could, through some sacrifice, make more food avail¬
able to them, what hope can any person have for the future of interna¬
tional relations? If we cannot agree on this most basic of values—feed
the hungry—what hopes for the future can we entertain? —James R.
Kelly, "The Limits of Reason"

Distinguishing Reports, Inferences, and Judgments

Although the activities of reporting, inferring, and judging tend to be woven
together in your experiences and in your writing, it is important for you to be
able to distinguish these activities. Each plays a different role in helping you
make sense of your world for yourself and for your readers, and you should
be careful not to confuse these roles. For instance, although writers may ap¬
pear to be reporting factual information, they may actually be expressing per¬
sonal evaluations, which are not factual. Consider the statement "Los
 Distinguishing Reports, Inferences, and Judgments 421

Angeles is a smog-ridden city drowning in automobiles." Although seeming

to be reporting factual information, the writer really is expressing his or her
personal judgment. Of course, writers can identify their judgments with such
phrases as "in my opinion," "my evaluation is," and so forth.
Sometimes, however, writers do not identify their judgments. In some
cases they do not do so because the context within which they are writing
(such as a newspaper editorial) makes it clear that the information is judg¬
ment rather than fact. In other cases, however, they want their judgments
treated as factual information. Confusing the activities of reporting, infer¬
ring, and judging, whether accidental or deliberate, can be misleading and
even dangerous.
Confusing factual information with judgments can be personally dam¬
aging as well. For example, there is a big difference between these two state¬
ments:

■ I failed my exam today. (Factual report)

■ lam a failure. (Judgment)

Stating the fact "I failed my exam today" describes your situation in a con¬
crete way, enabling you to see it as a problem you can hope to solve through
reflection and hard work. If, though, you make the judgment "I am a failure,"
this sort of general evaluation does not encourage you to explore solutions to
the problem or improve your situation.
Finally, another main reason for distinguishing the activities of reporting,
inferring, and judging concerns the accuracy of statements. We noted, for in¬
stance, that factual statements tend to be reasonably accurate because they
are by nature verifiable, whereas inferences are usually much less certain. As
a result, it is crucial for you to be aware of whether you are presenting a be¬
lief as a report, an inference, or a judgment. If you write the superintendent
of your apartment building a note saying "My thermostat is broken," an in¬
ference on your part based on the fact that you feel uncomfortably hot, you
will feel foolish when you discover that you have a fever and the thermostat
is functioning well.

Beliefs and Your Writing

Understanding and evaluating beliefs pertains in three particular ways to
your college papers as well as to the writing you will do in other settings.
First, as you understand more fully the distinctions among reports, infer¬
ences, and judgments, you will be able to present different types of beliefs
more accurately. While you may not often use the terms report, inference, or
judgment, you will word your beliefs in precise ways that indicate the level of
speculation behind your statements.
Second, a strong relationship exists between the thesis of a paper and
your beliefs about the topic. The thesis, most of all, expresses what you be-
422 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

lieve is the main point of your paper. As you work to clarify your thesis state¬
ment, you clarify your beliefs about the issue you are writing about. And
when you state the thesis clearly in your paper, you are making your beliefs
clear to your readers.
Third, as a college writer and quite possibly as a working professional,
you will regularly use source material in your papers. The techniques for
evaluating beliefs that are discussed in this chapter will help you judge
sources of information. Then, as you present what others have said, in your
researched writing, you can comment on those beliefs as you integrate the
sources into your papers. The Writing Project that follows is designed to help
you evaluate beliefs and their sources.
 Distinguishing Reports, Inferences, and Judgments 423

WRITING PROJECT

This chapter has included both readings and Thinking^ Writing Activities
that encouraged you to think about where your beliefs come from. Be sure to
reread what you wrote for the activities, as you may be able to use some of it
for help in completing this project.

WRITING PROJECT Analyzing Influences on Beliefs

Write an essay in which you consider some influences on the devel¬

opment of your beliefs within an academic field that interests you.
As much as possible, apply some of the concepts discussed in this
chapter. (Cite the chapter as your instructor directs.) Think about
the effects of personal experiences and the impact of your teachers
and other people of authority.
As a student, you receive much information that influences your
beliefs from print and electronic sources. Therefore, a major section
of this paper will be an analysis of two specific, up-to-date media
sources, such as newspaper, magazine, or journal articles; material
from a Web site; a film or a video; a book or book chapters. The two
sources you use should be about the same topic unless you have a
good reason to use sources about different topics. Use the Informa¬
tion Evaluation Questions presented in this chapter as a guide. Be
sure to comment on how these sources agree or differ and on how
the sources influence the beliefs which you hold. If you completed
the Writing Project in Chapter 7, you may want to see how the com¬
parative and analytical techniques used there can apply to this sec¬
tion of this Writing Project. Follow your instructor’s directions as to
topic limitations, length, format, citation methods, and so forth.

Begin by considering the key elements of the Thinking-^Writing

Model.

Purpose
Your primary purpose here is to further your own development as a capable
college student. You are exploring some of the ways in which you come to ac¬
cept concepts in an academic field, possibly the field in which you plan to ma¬
jor. In addition, you are sharing your insights with your audience, which
always provides another purpose: to write an effective paper.
On a technical level, you are required to take different kinds of informa¬
tion and pull them together to support one or more general points. In fact,
such synthesis is the central purpose of many kinds of academic and profes-
424 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

sional writing. Most research papers and case studies, field reports and pro¬
ject summaries, product proposals and business plans begin with a body of
related information that the writer must bring together and organize into a
unified whole.
You also have more intellectual purposes. You will look closely and crit¬
ically at your own ways of defining what you believe and what you think of
as true, as well as what you do not believe and what you think of as false. You
will also decide how to present your ideas: as reports, inferences, or judg¬
ments.

Audience
For this essay about the influences on your beliefs, it is best to think of your
audience as including a broad spectrum of different kinds of readers. You
may write for the other members of your class, but in doing so be sure to
imagine that part of your audience will hold beliefs that differ from yours. If
you are liberal politically, imagine that you will have more conservative peo¬
ple among your readers. If you are religious, imagine that your audience will
include people of other faiths who might question your religious views. To
write critically about your beliefs means to write to an audience that does not
entirely share them.
Of course, your professor remains the audience who will judge how well
you have planned, drafted, and revised. As a writing teacher, your professor
cares about clear focus, logical organization, specific examples, and correct¬
ness. Keep this in mind as you revise, edit, and proofread.

Subject
Examining the sources of beliefs and evaluating evidence are among the most
challenging of subjects to think and write about. If you are just beginning
your study of the field about which you are writing, you may not have
enough background to be very questioning or judgmental. However, you
should be aware of criteria that any thoughtful student can see: specific sup¬
port for a claim; current information if currentness is significant; appropriate-
seeming samples and authorities; responsible attribution. Also, you have
some understanding of reports, inferences, predictions, and judgments to ap¬
ply to your analysis.

Writer
For this Writing Project, you should let yourself be as open as possible to new
ways of thinking about your beliefs. After such critical analysis, many writ¬
ers are strengthened in their beliefs, or they may realize that some beliefs are
based on unreliable information and need to be re-evaluated.
As with the Writing Projects in Part One, you are in a position of author¬
ity here when you are writing about your own reactions and realizations. At
the same time, since you are writing about an academic field rather than
about your personal life, you are a writer who is dealing with other people's
 The Writing Process 425

beliefs in addition to your own. You may want to consider whether you are a
more accepting or more skeptical person.

The Writing Process

The following sections will guide you through the stages of planning, draft¬
ing, and revising your essay analyzing sources of your beliefs about concepts
in an academic field.

Generating Ideas
1. Identify in the Thinking^Writing Activities some ideas you may be able
to use. Then write informally about them.
2. Think about teachers, books, films, articles, and Internet and other sources
of information in your field that have provided you with information that
you believe. Why have they had this effect?
3. Think about any sources that you are reluctant to trust or believe. Why
have they had this effect?
4. What concepts in this field do you believe most firmly?
5. Are there some that you question?
6. If you can, talk to a professor or two in the field about how their beliefs
have developed. Ask them for guidance in evaluating sources. (Be sure to
credit them appropriately in your paper.)
7. Freewrite for five minutes about your ideas for this project.
8. Look at the list of questions for exploring topics in Chapter 1. Which of
them can help you generate ideas for this project?

Defining a Focus
There's a challenge in this Writing Project, because unlike some of the others
in this book, it does not direct your approach. So you must find a focus or a
thread that runs through your ideas or an umbrella-idea to cover several
points.

1. Focus on a specific concept, such as evolution in biology or parallel pro¬

cessing in computer science. Trace your experience with this idea. What
specific sources have contributed to your understanding of it?
2. Focus on your level of belief. How do you determine that a concept is be¬
lievable? What causes you to question it?
3. Focus on a concept that has changed, such as the significance of uniforms
and caps in nursing. What do you believe now? Why?
4. Focus on a common characteristic among the sources of your convictions
about the concept.
5. Focus on differences. Does a popular press or television account differ
from what your professor or your textbook has said? How do any differ¬
ences affect your beliefs?
426 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

6. Draft a focus sentence or thesis statement that gives direction to the essay.
7. Create a map or web or rough outline so that you can see how ideas might
cluster or separate.

Organizing Ideas
Once you have determined your focus and thought about information from
your own background and sources you analyzed to support this focus, map
out an outline indicating the order in which you will present your main
points.

1. If you are exploring the evolution of your beliefs, your organization may
be chronological, moving forward in time.
2. If you are looking at level of certainty about beliefs, then your organization
may be topical, focusing on one belief at a time.
3. If you are contrasting two differing perspectives on beliefs, your organi¬
zation may divide into two basic parts, the first focusing on one perspec¬
tive and the second on the other.
4. You may need to combine or reorganize the approaches suggested in items
1-3.
5. Keep in mind that you may find yourself modifying your outline as you
draft.

Drafting
Begin with the part easiest to draft. Is it writing about your teachers, perhaps,
or is it dealing with your print or electronic sources?
Perhaps then you should shift to a part that is hard to draft and at least
make some notes or get some questions on paper.
Draft a new outline or map, if necessary, as you rethink what you want
to say. Look at the preliminary focus sentence that you drafted. Do you need
to rework it now or should you wait until after you have drafted more?
Shape the paragraphs that will make up the body of your essay. Draft
clear topic sentences; think about where in each paragraph the topic sentence
should be placed.
Draft an opening paragraph and a concluding paragraph, understanding
that you may want to revise them substantially later.

Revising
Ideally, at this point, you should put your draft aside for a day or two. If
deadlines won't permit you to do that, then at least take a break before you
try to revise. When you are ready to re-see” your writing, begin by reading
it through slowly, preferably aloud. If possible, have someone whose opinion
you respect read it, ask for feedback. Then work through the hierarchy of re¬
vision concerns that follows. Remember that you have at least one and pos-
 The Writing Process 427

sibly two decisions to make for each question: (1) Is improvement needed?
and (2) If improvement is needed, how, exactly, can I make my draft better?

1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.

■ Does if fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ Is the organization logical?
■ Do you provide enough evidence?
■ Is your point of view consistent?
■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs?
■ Have you documented information from your sources accurately?
■ Have you used quotation marks around direct quotes or set the quotes off
by indenting?

2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.

■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
■ Is the introduction appropriate for the rest of the draft?
■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a "visible" structure?
■ If you are working with an "invisible" structure, is your focus clearly im¬
plied?
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
■ Does each body paragraph develop a different idea?
■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Is your conclusion effective?

3. Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.

■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
■ Are sentences with blended quotations (that is, quotations that are inte¬
grated into the syntax of the sentence instead of introduced with "He
said ..." or "She said ...") complete and easy to read?
■ Are quotations shortened with ellipsis marks accurate and readable?
■ Are there several choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Are any sentences vague?
■ Do any sentences need to be corrected for standard English grammar and
usage?

4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.

■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are there any words misspelled?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
■ Does your paper make a good impression by being neat?
■ Is there anything else you could do to improve your draft?
428 Chapter 10 Believing and Knowing—Writing to Analyze

Proofreading
After you prepare a final draft, check again for correct grammar and punctu¬
ation. Proofread carefully for omitted words or punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread carefully
for the kinds of errors the computer can't catch. i

Student Essay
Here is how one student responded to an assignment for a course in Crimi¬
nal Justice. Her professor asked the students to show how media treatments
of a current issue helped them to develop opinions about that issue. The es¬
say shows how an instructor might limit the topic to the part of the Writing
Project that asks for an analysis of sources.

STUDENT WRITING
Dealing with Sex Offenders
by Jessie Lange

In the past few years we have heard much about Megan’s Law, which
states that people should be made aware of charged sex offenders in
their community. While I wholeheartedly believe that people, for the
protection of themselves and their children, have the right’to know,
there is another twist on the issue I hadn’t thought about until I heard
a story recently on 60 Minutes. The story involved Stephanie’s Law—a
new law in place in some states under which sex offenders are kept
after they have served their time to go through a therapy program in
an attempt to "cure" them. The question that this provoked in me was
not whether the state should have the right to hold sexual criminals
beyond their sentence, but whether they can be cured at all. If not,
should they ever be released back into a world where they are likely
to do more damage, destroy more lives?
A recent New York Times article described a rehabilitation pro¬
gram in Texas whereby prisoners are immersed in religion—taking
classes, having discussions, and owning up to their “sins." Interest¬
ingly, while there are 79 men convicted of "robbery, drug possession,
and murder" participating, those convicted of sexual crimes are not
accepted into the program. This is partly because they are "looked
down on by other prisoners" and partly because, according to crimi¬
nologists, "sexual criminals are the most difficult to rehabilitate."
In fact, there is a question as to whether this rehabilitation is even
possible. Sexual criminals in particular seem to be under the influence
of urges which are out of their control. The 60 Minutes report said
 Student Writing 429

that, while many may have good intentions in being treated through
therapy and returning to society, it may be out of their hands. They
may say they understand their wrongs, they may feel cured, but if they
are released it seems impossible for even the offenders to know if
they will be able to control their impulses. If there is such a question,
do they deserve a chance at freedom when it means potentially com¬
mitting another crime?
There is no question in my mind that, while many sex offenders do
not repent for what they have done and have no real interest in being
cured, there are also many for whom their crimes are almost out of
their hands—as disgusting to them as to anyone else. The New York
Times ran an article entitled "Sex Offender Agrees To Be Castrated." In
Illinois, a convicted child sex offender is having himself castrated "in
an effort to win a lighter sentence." The offender, in fact, "volunteered
to be castrated even before he was convicted" previously of an attack
on a young girl. It seems as though the man is making an attempt to
control his urges but, according to the article "Experts disagree on
whether castration helps" in controlling these urges.
Both the New York Times and 60 Minutes have good reputations as
reliable media sources. I read this paper and watch this show regu¬
larly. (I’m pleased that my parents introduced me to them.) I think that
these reports are as reliable as the popular press can be. If I decide
to do research on this subject and write a substantial paper, I will
have to use criminal justice and sociology journals and try to interview
one or two experts, as well.
I have not had any personal experience with sex offenders, but I
have read and heard enough to know that their crimes destroy not
only the lives of victims, but the families and friends of the victims
and that their crimes can so haunt victims that these fears are never re¬
solved. In addition, victims of sexual crimes may grow up to inflict
these crimes on others, continuing the cycle. In my opinion, the dam¬
age done by sex offenders and the risk of untreatable urges to commit
these crimes, a risk illustrated by the high percentage of repeat of¬
fenders, is too great to justify their release. At least not until there is a
proven "cure," a sure-fire way to know that they are treatable, have
been treated, and will not continue to make victims of others.
Through the media, I have come to understand that many may be
operating on urges not within their control, but this does not justify
their release. At some point the blame has to fall on the individual. If
they were to learn that their rehabilitation was an impossibility, I think
that those who are truly disgusted by their crimes might even agree
that they are too dangerous to be returned to a society where they
have already done so much damage.
 CHAPTER 11

Solving Problems—Writing to
Propose Solutions

Critical Thinking Focus: The problem-solving model

Writing Focus: Proposing solutions
Reading Theme: Solving a social problem
Writing Project: Applying the problem-solving model

Writing to Propose Solutions

Problem solving is one of the most powerful thinking patterns we possess,
and writing is the main vehicle used to analyze challenging problems and
propose solutions. On a personal level, you very likely have had the experi¬
ence of writing a letter (or e-mail) in regard to a problem you were dealing
with. You might have been trying to figure out how to sustain a romantic re¬
lationship while geographically separated, helping a friend resolve a per¬
sonal crisis, or writing to family members to coordinate a holiday reunion.
Academically, you probably have engaged in writing assignments in which
you were asked to analyze a social problem and propose possible solutions.
In the work arena, memos and position papers aimed at solving problems are
an integral part of most careers, from finance to filmmaking.
Although writing to propose solutions is a common form of writing, it is
a very challenging form to do well. In order to compose an insightful'and
compelling document, you need to take the following steps.

■ Define the problem clearly. \our audience needs to understand that

there is a problem, one important enough for you to invest mental en¬
ergy in solving.
430
 Thinking Critically About Solving Problems 431

■ Analyze the problem systematically. Complex problems are often a con¬

fusing tangle of needs, ideas, frustrations, goals, and pieces of informa¬
tion. You need to disentangle the issues so that your audience can
understand what the core of the problem is and what alternatives are
possible.
■ Propose a well-reasoned solution. After presenting a lucid analysis of the
problem, along with feasible alternatives, you need to reach a conclu¬
sion that you support with thoughtful reasons and solid evidence. As
part of your proposed solution, you should explain why other alterna¬
tive solutions are less desirable than the one you selected. You should
also address anticipated objections to your solution and explain how
these difficulties can be overcome.

In order to master this form of problem-solving writing, you first need to

master this form of thinking. To analyze the problem cogently and articulate
your analysis clearly, you must apply the critical and creative thinking abili¬
ties that you have been developing. Helping you to assimilate this complex
form of thinking and writing is the purpose of this chapter.

Thinking Critically About Solving Problems

Throughout your life, you are continually solving problems. As a student, for
example, you are faced with a steady stream of academic assignments,
quizzes, exams, papers, homework projects, oral presentations. In order
to solve these problems effectively—to do well on an exam, for instance—
you need to define the problem (what areas will the exam cover, and what
will be the format?), identify and evaluate various alternatives (what are pos¬
sible study approaches?), and then put all these factors together to reach a so¬
lution (what will be your study plan and schedule?). Relatively simple
problems like preparing for an exam do not require a systematic or complex
analysis. You can solve them with just a little effort and concentration. The
difficult and complicated problems in your personal life, such as choosing a
college major or terminating a relationship, can be a different story. Because
these are such crucial situations, you owe it to yourself to solve each such
problem in the best possible way, using all your creative and critical thinking
skills.
The problems that exist in society also need the very best thinking of all
citizens. Violent crime is far too common, parents feel stressed about their
children's safety, illegal drugs continue to destroy lives, and both racism and
sexism create conflicts. These problems may seem overwhelming, and it is
true that you cannot control them in the way you may be able to control your
own life situations. Still, by thinking creatively and critically about them, and
by gathering information about them, you can at least develop your own
432 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

positions on what to do about them. Then you will be in a position to act on

these problems and to vote for candidates whose positions are similar to
yours.
To help you prepare to meet the challenges of solving both personal and
societal problems, this chapter will examine a powerful problem-solving ap¬
proach, first considering it in relation to personal problems and then in rela¬
tion to the larger problems of society. We will next consider readings on
societal problems, and end with an essay-writing assignment, in which the
problem-solving model is applied to one such problem.

The Problem-Solving Model in Detail

Consider the following problem:

My best friend is addicted to drugs, but he won't admit it. Jack always liked
to drink, but I never thought too much about it. After all, a lot of people like
to drink socially, get relaxed, and have a good time. But over the last few
years he s started using other drugs as well as alcohol, and it's ruining his
life. He s stopped taking classes at the college and will soon lose his job if he
doesn t change. Last week I told him that I was really worried about him,
but he told me that he has no drug problem and that in any case it really isn't
any of my business. I just don t know what to do. I've known Jack since we
were in grammar school together and he's a wonderful person. It's as if he's
in the grip of some terrible force and I'm powerless to help him.

In working through this problem, the student who wrote this descrip¬
tion could simply think of one possible course of action and try it. But if he
or she chooses instead to approach the problem as a critical thinker, the
student will have to think carefully and systematically in order to reach a so¬
lution.
In order to think effectively in situations like this, we usually ask our¬
selves a series of questions, although we may not be aware of this mental
process. These are the questions you ask yourself in a five-step problem¬
solving method. 1

1. What is the problem?

2. What are the alternatives?
3. What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of each alternative?
4. What is the solution?
5. How well is the solution working?

Let's explore these questions further—and the thinking process that they rep¬
resent—by applying them to the problem just described. Put yourself in the
position of the student whose friend seems to have a serious addiction.
 The Problem-Solving Model in Detail 433

What Is the Problem?

There are a variety of ways to define the problem facing this concerned stu¬
dent. For instance, you might define it as simply as "Jack has a drug depen¬
dency." You might view the problem as "Jack has a drug dependency and he
won't admit it." You might even define the problem as "Jack has a drug de¬
pendency and he won't admit it—and I want to help him solve this problem." No¬
tice that each redefinition of the problem results in a more specific definition,
which in turn helps us more clearly understand the essence of the problem
and our responsibility with respect to it.

What Are the Alternatives?

In dealing with this problem, you have a wide variety of possible actions to
consider before selecting the best choices. Identify some of the alternatives
you might consider.

1. Speak to your friend in a candid and forceful way to convince him that he
has a serious drug dependency.
2.
3.

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages

of Each Alternative?
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each of the alternatives you identi¬
fied so you can weigh your choices and decide on the best course of action.

1. Speak to your friend in a candid and forceful way to convince him that he
has a serious problem.
Advantage: He may respond to your direct emotional appeal, acknowledge
that he has a problem, and seek help.
Disadvantage: He may react angrily, further alienating you from him and
making it more difficult for you to have any influence on him.
2. ___
Advantage:-
Disadvan tage:-—-
3. —_
Advantage:-—-
Disadvantage:---

What Is the Solution?

After evaluating the various alternatives, select what you think is the most ef¬
fective alternative for solving the problem and describe the sequence of steps
you would take to act on the alternative.
434 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

Alternative:_
Steps:____
1. ___
2. ___

How Well Is the Solution Working?

y
The final step in the process comes after you have taken the steps to imple¬
ment the alternative you have chosen. You review the solution and decide
whether it is working well. If it is not, you must modify your solution or per¬
haps choose an alternate solution you disregarded earlier. In this situation,
trying to figure out the best way to assist your friend to recognize his depen¬
dency and seek treatment leads to a series of decisions. This is what the think¬
ing process is all about—trying to make sense of what is going on in our
world and acting appropriately in response. When we solve problems effec¬
tively our thinking process exhibits a coherent organization. It follows the
general approach we have just explored.
If we can understand the way our mind operates when we are thinking
effectively we can apply this understanding to improve our thinking in new,
challenging situations. In the remainder of this chapter, we will explore a
more sophisticated version of this problem-solving approach and apply it to
a variety of complex, difficult problems.

THINKINGWRITING ACTIVITY 11.1

A Problem Solved
1. Describe in specific detail an important problem you have solved recently.
2. Explain how you went about solvins the problem. What were the steps,
stratesies, and approaches you used to understand the problem and make
an informed decision?
3. Analyze your thinkins process by completins the five-step problem-solving
method we have been exploring.
4. Share your problem with other members of the class and have them try to
analyze and solve it. Then explain the solution you arrived at.

Solving Complex Problems

Imagine yourself in the following situation. What would your next move be,
and what are your reasons for deciding on it?

You are about to begin your second year of college, following a very suc¬
cessful first year. Until now, you have financed your education through a
 Solving Complex Problems 435

combination of savings, financial aid, and a part-time job (sixteen hours a

week) at a local store. However, you just received a letter from your col¬
lege reducing your financial aid package by half, due to budgetary prob¬
lems. The letter concludes, "We hope this aid reduction will not prove to
be too great an inconvenience." From your perspective, the loss of aid isn't
an inconvenience—it's a disaster! Your budget last year was already tight,
and with your job, you had barely enough time to study, participate in a
few college activities, and have a modest (but essential) social life. To make
matters worse, your mother has been ill, reducing her income and creating
financial problems at home. You're feeling panicked—what in the world
are you going to do?

We noted earlier that when we first approach a difficult problem, it often

seems a confused tangle of information, feelings, alternatives, opinions, con¬
siderations, and risks. The problem of the college student just described is a
complicated situation that does not seem to have a single simple solution.
Without the benefit of a systematic approach, our thoughts might wander
through the tangle of issues like this:

I want to stay in school... but I'm not going to have enough money.... I
could work more hours at my job ... but I might not have enough time to
study and get top grades ... and if all I'm doing is working and studying,
what about my social life? ... and what about Mom and the kids—they
might need my help.... I could drop out of school for a while ... but if I
don't stay in school what kind of future do I have? ...

Very often when we are faced with difficult problems like this, we simply
do not know where to begin in trying to solve them. Every issue is connected
to many others. Frustrated by not knowing where to take the first step, we of¬
ten give up trying to understand the problem. Instead, we may behave in one
of the following ways:

1. Act impulsively without thought or consideration (e.g., "I'll just quit

school").
2. Do what someone else suggests without seriously evaluating the suggestion
(e.g., "Tell me what I should do—I'm tired of thinking about this").
3. Do nothing as we wait for events to make the decision for us (e.g., "I'll just
wait and see what happens before doing anything").

None of these approaches is likely to succeed in the long run, and each one
can gradually reduce our confidence in dealing with complex problems. An
alternative to these reactions is to think critically about the problem, analyz¬
ing it with an organized approach based on the five-step method we identi¬
fied above.
436 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

Problem-Solving Method
Step 1: What is the problem?
a. What do I know about the situation?
b. What are the results I am aiming for in this situation?
c. How can I define the problem? y
Step 2: What are the alternatives?
a. What are the boundaries of the problem situation?
b. What alternatives are possible within these boundaries?
Step 3: What are the advantages and disadvantages of each alterna¬
tive?
a. What are the advantages of each alternative?
b. What are the disadvantages of each alternative?
c. What additional information do I need in order to evaluate
each alternative?
Step 4: What is the solution?
a. Which alternative(s) will I pursue?
b. What steps can I take to act on the alternative(s) chosen?
Step 5: How well is my solution working?
a. What is my evaluation?
b. What adjustments are necessary?

Although we will be using an organized method for working through

difficult problems and arriving at thoughtful conclusions, the fact is that our
minds do not always work in such a logical, step-by-step fashion. Effective
problem solvers typically pass through all the steps we will be examining,
but not always in the sequence we will be describing. Instead, the best prob¬
lem solvers have an integrated and flexible approach to the process, an ap¬
proach in which they deploy a repertoire of problem-solving strategies as
needed. Sometimes, exploring the various alternatives helps them to go back
and redefine the original problem; similarly, seeking to implement the solu¬
tion can often suggest new alternatives or a new alternative that combines
best points of previous alternatives.
The key point is that although the problem-solving steps are presented in
a logical sequence here, you are not locked into following these steps in a me¬
chanical and unimaginative fashion. At the same time, in learning a problem¬
solving method like this, it is generally not wise to skip steps, because each
step deals with an important aspect of the problem. As you become more pro¬
ficient in using the method, you will find that you can apply its concepts and
strategies to problem solving in an increasingly flexible and natural fashion,
just as learning the basics of an activity like driving a car gradually develops
into a more organic and integrated performance of the skills involved. Before
 Solving Complex Problems 437

applying a method like the one we have just outlined to your problem, how¬
ever, you need to ready yourself by accepting the problem.

Accepting the Problem

To solve a problem, you must first be willing to accept the problem by ac¬
knowledging that it exists and committing yourself to trying to solve it. Some¬
times you may have difficulty recognizing there is a problem, unless it is
pointed out to you. At other times you may actively resist acknowledging a
problem, even when it is pointed out to you. The person who confidently
states, "I don't really have any problems," sometimes has very serious prob¬
lems—but is simply unwilling to acknowledge them.
However, mere acknowledgment is not enough to solve a problem. Once
you have identified a problem, you must commit yourself to trying to solve
it. Successful problem solvers are highly motivated and willing to persevere
through the many challenges and frustrations of the problem-solving process.
How do you find the motivation and commitment that prepare you to enter
the problem-solving process? There are not simple answers, but a number of
strategies may be useful to you:

■ List the benefits. Making a detailed list of the benefits you will derive
from successfully dealing with the problem is a good place to begin.
Such a process helps you clarify why you might want to tackle the
problem, motivates you to get started, and serves as a source of encour¬
agement when you encounter difficulties or lose momentum.
■ Formalize your acceptance. When we formalize our acceptance of a
problem, we are "going on record," either by preparing a signed decla¬
ration or by signing a "contract" with someone else. This formal com¬
mitment serves as an explicit statement of our original intentions that
we can refer to if our resolve weakens.
■ Accept responsibility for your life. Robert F. Kennedy, the former U.S. At¬
torney General who was assassinated in 1968, once said, "Some people
see things as they are, and ask, 'Why?' I see things as they could be, and
ask, 'Why not?'" All of us have the potential to control the direction of
our own individual lives, but to do so we must accept our freedom to
choose and the responsibility that goes with it. As we saw in the last
chapter, critical thinkers actively work to take charge of their lives rather
than letting themselves be passively controlled by external forces.
■ Create a "worst case" scenario. Some problems persist because we are
able to ignore their possible implications. When we create a worst-case
scenario, we remind ourselves, as graphically as possible, of the poten¬
tially disastrous consequences of our actions. For example, using vivid
color photographs and research conclusions, we can remind ourselves
that excessive smoking, drinking, or eating can lead to myriad health
438 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

problems and social and psychological difficulties as well as an early

and untimely demise.
■ Identify the constraints. If we are having difficulty accepting a problem,
it is usually because something is holding us back. For example, we
might be concerned about the amount of time and effort involved; we
might be reluctant to confront the underlying issues the problem repre¬
sents; we might be worried about finding out unpleasant things about
ourselves or others; or we might be inhibited by other problems in our
lives, such as a tendency to procrastinate. Whatever the constraints, us¬
ing this strategy involves identifying and describing all the factors that
are preventing us from attacking the problem, and then addressing
these factors one at a time.

Step 1: What is the Problem?

The first step in solving a problem is to determine exactly what the central is¬
sues of the problem are. Otherwise, our chances of solving it are considerably
reduced. We may even spend our time trying to solve the wrong problem. For
instance, consider the different formulations of the following problems. How
might these foimulations lead us in different directions in trying to solve it?

"School is boring" vs. "Ifeel bored in school."

"I'm a failure" vs. "I just failed an exam."

In each of these cases, a very general conclusion (first formulation) has been
leplaced by a more specific characterization of the problem (second formula¬
tion).
The general conclusions ( I m a failure”) do not suggest productive ways
of resolving the difficulties. They are too absolute, too all-encompassing. On
the other hand, the more specific descriptions of the problem situation ("I
just failed an exam ) do permit us to attack the problems with useful strate¬
gies. hi short, the way we define a problem determines not only how we will
go about solving it, but whether we feel that the problem can be solved at all.
Correct identification of a problem is essential if we are going to be able to
perform a successful analysis and reach an appropriate conclusion. If we
misidentify the problem, we can find ourselves pursuing an unproductive,
even destructive, course of action.
Consider the problem of the college student whose financial aid package
was cut in half (page 436), and analyze it using our problem-solving method.
(Note: As you work through this problem-solving approach, apply the steps
and strategies to an unsolved problem in your own life. You will have an op¬
portunity to write up your analysis when you complete Thinking^ > Writing
Activity 11.2 on page 451.) Recall that in order to complete the first major step
of the problem-solving approach, "What is the problem?" it is necessary to
address three component questions:
 Solving Complex Problems 439

1. What do I know about the situation?

2. What results am I aiming for in this situation?
3. How can I define the problem?

Step 1A: What do I know about the situation? Solving a problem begins
with determining what you know to be the case and what you think may be
the case. To explore the problem successfully, you need to have a clear idea of
the details of your beginning circumstances. Sometimes a situation may ap¬
pear to be a problem when it really isn't, simply because your information
isn't accurate. Suppose you are convinced that someone you are attracted to
doesn't reciprocate your interest. If this belief is inaccurate, your "problem"
doesn't really exist.
You can identify and organize what you know about the problem situa¬
tion by using key questions. In Chapter 1, we examined six types of questions
that can be used to explore situations and issues systematically: fact, interpre¬
tation, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, application. By asking—and trying to an¬
swer—questions of fact, you are establishing a sound foundation for
exploring your problem. Imagine that you are the student described earlier
who is facing a reduction in financial aid. Answer the following questions of
fact—who, what, where, when, how, why—about your problem.

1. Who are the people involved in this situation?

Who will benefit from solving this problem?
Who can help me solve this problem?
2. What are the various parts or dimensions of the problem?
What are my strengths and resources for solving this problem?
What additional information do I need in order to solve this problem?
3. Where can I find people or additional information to help me solve the
problem?
4. When did the problem begin?
When should the problem be resolved?
5. How did the problem develop or come into being?
6. Why is solving this problem important to me?
Why is this problem difficult to solve?
7. Additional questions:

Step IB: What results am I aiming for in this situation? The second part of
answering the question "What is the problem?" consists of identifying the
specific results or objectives you are trying to achieve. The results will elimi¬
nate the problem if you are able to achieve them. Whereas the first part of Step
1 oriented you in terms of the history of the problem and the current situation,
this part encourages you to look to the future. To identify results, you need to
ask yourself the question "What are the objectives that, once achieved, will
solve this problem?" For instance, one of the results or objectives in the sam¬
ple problem might be having enough money to pay for college. Describe ad¬
ditional results you might be trying to achieve in this situation.
440 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

1. Having enough money to pay for college.

2.
3. ~
4.

Step 1C: How can I define the problem? After exploring what you know
about the problem and the results you want to achieve, you need to conclude
Step 1 by defining the problem as clearly and specifically as possible. Defining
the problem is a crucial task in the problem-solving process because this defi¬
nition will determine the direction of your analysis. To define the problem,
you need to identify its central issue(s). Sometimes defining the problem is rel¬
atively straightforward, such as “Trying to find enough time to exercise/7
Often, however, identifying the central issue of a problem is a much more
complex process. For example, the statement “My problem is relating to
other people suggests a complicated situation with many interacting vari¬
ables that resists simple definition. In fact, you may not begin to develop a
clear idea of the problem until you engage in the process of trying to solve it.
Or you might begin by believing that your problem is, say, not having the
ability to succeed, bu t end by concluding that the problem is really a fear of
success.
As you will see, the same insights apply to societal problems as well. To
take one example, the problem of high school dropouts might initially be de¬
fined in terms of problems in the school system, whereas later formulations
might identify drug use or social pressure as the core of the problem.
Although there are no simple formulas for defining challenging problems,
you can pursue several strategies in identifying the central issue most effec¬
tively:

■ View the problem from different perspectives. As you saw in Chapter 2,

perspective-taking is a key ingredient of thinking critically, and it can
help you to zero in on many problems as well. When you describe how
various individuals might view a given problem—such as the high
school dropout rate—the essential ingredients of the problem being to
emerge. In our sample student financial-aid problem, how would you
describe the student's perspective? the college's perspective? the student's
mother's perspective?
■ Identify component problems. Larger problems are often composed of
component problems. To define the larger problem, it is often necessary
to identify and describe the subproblems that make it up. Poor perfor¬
mance at school, for instance, might result from a number of factors like
ineffective study habits, inefficient time management, and preoccupa¬
tion with a personal problem. Defining, and dealing effectively with,
the larger problem means defining and dealing with the subproblems
first. Can you identify two possible subproblems in the financial-aid
problem?
 Solving Complex Problems 441

■ State the problem clearly and specifically. A third defining strategy is to

state the problem as clearly and specifically as possible, on the basis of
an examination of the problem's objectives. This sort of clear and spe¬
cific description of the problem is an important step in solving it. If you
state the problem in very general terms, you won't have a clear idea of
how best to proceed in dealing with it. If you can describe your prob¬
lem in specific terms, your description will begin to suggest actions you
can take to solve the problem. Examine the differences between the
statements of the following problem:
General: "My problem is money."
More specific: "My problem is budgeting my money so that I won't always
run out near the end of the month."
Most specific: "My problem is developing the habit and the discipline to
budget my money so that I won't always run out near the end of the
month."
Review your analysis of the student's financial-aid problem; then state the
problem in writing as clearly and specifically as you can.

Step 2: What Are the Alternatives?

Once you have identified a problem clearly and specifically, your next move
is to examine each possible action that might help you to solve it. Before you
list the alternatives, however, it makes sense to determine which actions are
possible and which are not. You can do this by exploring the boundaries of the
problem situation.

Step 2A: What are the boundaries of the problem situation? Boundaries are
limits that you simply cannot change. They are part of the problem, and they
must be accepted and dealt with. For example, in our sample situation, involv¬
ing loss of financial aid, the fact that a day has only twenty-four hours must be
accepted as part of the problem situation. There is no point in developing al¬
ternatives that ignore this fact. At the same time, you must be careful not to
identify as boundaries circumstances that can be changed. For instance, you
might assume that your problem must be solved in your current location, with¬
out realizing that relocating to a less expensive college is one of your options.
Identify additional boundaries that might be part of this sample situation and
some of the questions you would want to answer regarding these boundaries.

Step 2B: What alternatives are possible within these boundaries? After
you have established a general idea of the boundaries of the problem situa¬
tion, you can proceed to identify the possible courses of action that can take
place within these boundaries. Of course, identifying all the possible alterna¬
tives is not always easy; in fact, it may be part of your problem. Often we do
not see a way out of a problem because our thinking is set in certain ruts,
 442 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

Generating Alternatives: The best approach to solving problems involves

generating many different possible alternatives instead of just a few.

fixed in certain perspectives. We are blind to other approaches, either because

we reject them before seriously considering them (“That will never work'")
or because they simply do not occur to us. You can use several strategies to
overcome these obstacles:

■ Discuss the problem with other people. Discussing possible alternatives

with others uses a number of the aspects of critical thinking you ex¬
plored in Chapter 2. As you saw then, thinking critically involves being
open to seeing situations from different viewpoints and discussing your
ideas with others in an organized way Both of these abilities are impor¬
tant m solvmg problems. As critical thinkers we live—and solve prob¬
lems—in a community, not simply by ourselves. Other people can often
suggest alternatives we haven't thought of, since these people are out¬
side the situation and thus have a more objective perspective, and since
they naturally view the world differently than we do, because of their
past experiences and their personalities. In addition, discussions are of¬
ten creative experiences that generate ideas the participants would not
have come up with on their own. The dynamics of these interactions lead
to products that are greater than the individual "sum" of those involved
 Solving Complex Problems 443

■ Brainstorm ideas. Brainstorming, a method introduced by Alex Osborn,

builds on the strengths of working with other people to generate ideas
and solve problems. In a typical brainstorming session, a group of
people work together to generate as many ideas as possible in a specific
period of time. As ideas are produced, they are not judged or evaluated,
as this tends to inhibit the free flow of ideas and discourages people
from making suggestions. Evaluation is deferred until a later stage.
People are encouraged to build on to the ideas of others, since the most
creative ideas are often generated through the constructive interplay of
various minds.
■ Change your location. Your perspectives on a problem are often tied
into the circumstances in which the problem exists. For example, a
problem you may be having in school is tied into your daily experi¬
ences and habitual reactions to these experiences. Sometimes you need
a fresh perspective, getting away from the problem situation so that
you can view it with more clarity and in a different light. Using these
strategies, as well as your own reflections, identify as many alternatives
to help solve our sample problem that you can think of.

1. Attend school part-time

2. ___
3. ___
4. ________

Step 3: What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Each

Alternative?
Once you have identified the various alternatives, your next step is to evalu¬
ate them. Each possible course of action has certain advantages in the sense
that if you select that alternative, there will be some positive results. At the
same time, each of the possible courses of action probably has disadvantages
as well, in the sense that if you select that alternative, there may be a cost in¬
volved or a risk of some negative results. Determine how helpful each course
of action would or would not be in solving the problem.

Step 3A: What are the advantages of each alternative? The alternative we
listed in Step 2 for the sample problem ("Attend college part-time") might in¬
clude the following advantages.
Alternatives Advantages

1. Attend college part-time This would remove some of the immediate

time and money pressures I am experiencing
while still allowing me to prepare for the future.
I would have more time to focus on the courses
that I am taking and to work additional hours.
444 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

Identify the advantages of each of the alternatives that you listed in Step 2. Be
sure that your responses are thoughtful and specific. For example, how many
additional hours could your work? How much additional income would that
generate?

Step 3B: What are the disadvantages of each alternative? The alternative
we listed in Step 2 for the sample problem might include the following disad¬
vantages.

Alternatives Disadvantages

1. Attend college part-time It would take me much longer to complete my

schooling, thus delaying my progress toward
my goals. Also, I might lose motivation and
drop out before completing school because the
process would be taking so long. Being a part-
time student might threaten my eligibility for
financial aid.

Now identify the disadvantages of each of the alternatives that you listed for
Step 2. Make sure that your responses are thoughtful and specific. For exam¬
ple, how much longer would it take to get your degree?

Step 3C: What additional information do I need to evaluate each alterna¬

tive? The next part of Step 3 consists in determining what you must know
(information needed) to best evaluate and compare the alternatives. For each al¬
ternative there are questions that must be answered if you are to establish
which alternatives make sense and which do not. In addition, you need to fig¬
ure out where best to get this information (sources).
One useful way to identify the information you need is to ask the ques¬
tion What if I select this alternative?" For instance, one alternative in our
sample problem was to "attend college part-time." When you ask yourself
What if I attend college part-time?" you are trying to predict what will occur
if you select this course of action. To make these predictions, you must an¬
swer certain questions and find the information to answer them.
■ How long will it take me to complete my schooling?
■ How long can I continue in school without losing interest and dropping
out? rr 6

■ Will I threaten my eligibility for financial aid if I become a part-time

student?

The information—and the sources of it—that must be located for the first al¬
ternative in our sample problem might include the following.

Alternative Information Needed and Sources

1. Attend college part-time Information: How long will it take me to

complete my schooling? How long can
 Solving Complex Problems 445

I continue in school without losing in¬

terest and dropping out? Will I threaten
my eligibility for financial aid if I be¬
come a part-time student?
Sources: Myself, other part-time students,
school counselors, financial aid office.

Identify the information needed and the sources of this information for each
of the alternatives that you identified on page 445. Be sure that your re¬
sponses are thoughtful and specific.

Step 4: What Is the Solution?

The purpose of Steps 1 to 3 is to analyze your problem in a systematic and de¬
tailed fashion—to work through the problem in order to become thoroughly
familiar with it and the possible solutions to it. After breaking down the prob¬
lem in this way, your final step should be to try to put the pieces back to¬
gether—that is, to decide on a thoughtful course of action based on your
increased understanding. Even though this sort of problem analysis does not
guarantee finding a specific solution to the problem, it should deepen your un¬
derstanding of exactly what the problem is about. And in locating and evaluat¬
ing the alternatives, it should give you some very good ideas about the general
direction you should move in and the immediate steps you should take.

Step 4A: What altemative(s) will I pursue? There is no simple formula or

recipe to tell you which alternatives to select. As you work through the different
courses of action that are possible, you may find that you can immediately rule
some out. In the sample problem, for example, you may know with certainty
that you do not want to attend college part-time (alternative 1) because you will
forfeit your remaining financial aid. However, if may not be so simple to select
which of the other alternatives you wish to pursue. How do you decide?
The decisions we make usually depend on what we believe to be most
important to us. These beliefs regarding what is most important to us are
known as values. Our values are the starting points of our actions and
strongly influence our decisions. For example, if we value staying alive (as
most of us do), we will make many decisions each day that express this
value—eating proper meals, not walking in front of moving traffic, and so on.
Our values help us set priorities in life—that is, decide what aspects of our
lives are most important to us. We might decide that for the present, going to
school is more important than having an active social life. In this case, going to
school has higher priority than having an active social life. Unfortunately, our
values are not always consistent with each other—we may have to choose ei¬
ther to go to school or to have an active social life. Both activities may be im¬
portant to us; they are simply not compatible with each other. Very often the
conflicts between our values constitute the problem. Let's examine some strate¬
gies for selecting alternatives that might help to solve the sample problem.
446 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

■ Evaluate and compare alternatives. Although each alternative may have

certain advantages and disadvantages, not all advantages are equally
desirable or potentially effective. For example, giving up on college en¬
tirely would certainly solve some aspects of the sample problem, but its
obvious disadvantages would rule out this solution for most people.
Thus, it makes sense to try to evaluate and rank the various alternatives
on the basis of how effective they are likely to be and how they match
up with your value system. A good place to begin is at the "Results"
stage. Step IB. Examine each of the alternatives and evaluate how well
it will contribute to achieving the results you are aiming for in the situa¬
tion. You may want to rank the alternatives or develop your own rating
system to assess their relative effectiveness.
After evaluating the alternatives in terms of their anticipated effective¬
ness, the next step is to evaluate them in terms of their desirability, relative
to your needs, interests, and value systems. Again, you can use either a
ranking or a rating system to assess their relative desirability. After com¬
pleting these two separate evaluations, you can select whatever alterna¬
tives seem most appropriate. Review the alternatives you identified in
the sample problem; then rank or rate them according to their potential
effectiveness and desirability, assuming that this problem is your own.
■ Synthesize a new alternative. After reviewing and evaluating the alter¬
natives you generated, you may develop a new alternative that com¬
bines the best qualities of several options while avoiding the
disad vantages some of them have if chosen exclusively. In the sample
problem, you might combine attending college part-time during the
academic year with attending school during the summer session, so
that progress toward your degree won't be impeded. Examine the alter¬
natives you identified and develop a new option that combines the best
elements of several of them.

■ Try out each alternative—in your imagination. Focus on each alternative

and try to imagine, as concretely as possible, what it would be like if
you actually selected it. Visualize what impact your choice would have
on your problem and what the implications would be for your life as a
whole. By trying out the alternative in your imagination, you can some-
tunes avoid unpleasant results or unexpected consequences. As a varia¬
tion of this strategy, you can sometimes test alternatives on a very
limited basis in a practice situation. Suppose you are trying to over¬
come your fear of speaking out in groups; you can practice various
speaking techniques with your friends or family until you find an ap¬
proach that works for you. r

After trying out these strategies on the sample problem, select the alterna¬
tive^) you thmk would be most effective and desirable from your stand¬
point.
 Solving Complex Problems 447

Step 4B: What steps can I take to act on the altemative(s) chosen? Once
you have decided on an alternative to pursue, your next move is to plan what
steps to take in acting on it. Planning the specific steps you will take is ex¬
tremely important. Although thinking carefully about your problem is nec¬
essary, it is not enough if you hope to solve the problem. You have to take
action. In the same problem, for example, imagine that one of the alternatives
you have selected is "Find additional sources of income that will enable me
to work part-time, go to school full-time." The specific steps you would want
to take might include these:

1. Contact the financial aid office at the college to learn what other forms of
financial aid are available and how to apply for them.
2. Contact some of the local banks to find out what sort of student loans are
available.
3. Look for a higher-paying job so that I can earn more money without work¬
ing additional hours.
4. Discuss the problem with students in similar circumstances in order to
generate new ideas.

Identify the steps you would have to take in pursuing the alternative(s) you
identified on page 443.
Plans, of course, do not implement themselves. Once you know what ac¬
tions you have to take, you need to make a commitment to taking the neces¬
sary steps. This is where many people stumble in the problem-solving
process; they remain paralyzed by inertia or fear. Sometimes, to overcome
such blocks and inhibitions, you need to re-examine your original acceptance
of the problem, perhaps making use of some of the strategies you explored
on pages 437-438. Once you get started, the rewards of actively attacking
your problem are often enough incentive to keep you focused and motivated.

Step 5: How Well Is the Solution Working?

As you work toward reaching a reasonable and informed conclusion, be
wary of falling into the trap of thinking there is only one "right" decision and
if you do not figure out what it is and carry it out, all is lost. You should re¬
mind yourself that any analysis of problem situations, no matter how careful
and systematic, is ultimately limited. You simply cannot anticipate or predict
everything that is going to happen in the future. As a result, every decision
you make is provisional, in the sense that your ongoing experience will in¬
form you if your decisions are working out or if they need to be modified. As
you saw in Chapter 2, this is precisely the attitude of the critical thinker—
someone who is receptive to new ideas and experiences and flexible enough
to change or modify beliefs on the basis of new information. Critical thinking
is not a compulsion to find the "right" answer or make the "correct" decision;
it is a continuing process of exploration and discovery.
448 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

Step 5A: What is my evaluation? In many cases the relative effectiveness of

your efforts will be apparent. In other cases you will find it helpful to pursue
a more systematic evaluation, along the lines suggested in the following
strategies.

■ Compare the results with the goals. The essence of evaluation is compar-
ing the results of your efforts with the initial goals you are trying to
achieve. For example, the goals of your sample problem are embodied
in the results you specified on page 439. Compare the anticipated re¬
sults of the alternative(s) you selected. To what extent will your choice
meet these goals? Are any goals not likely to be met by your alterna¬
tive^)? If so, which ones? Could they be addressed by other alterna¬
tives? Asking these questions and others will help you to clarify the
success of your efforts and will provide a foundation for future deci¬
sions.

■ Get other perspectives. As you have seen throughout the problem¬

solving process, getting the opinions of others is a productive strategy
at virtually every stage, and this is certainly true for evaluation. Other
people often can provide perspectives that are both different and more
objective than ours. Naturally, the evaluations of others are not always
better or more accurate than your own, but even when they are not, re¬
flecting on these different views usually deepens your understanding of
the situation. It is not always easy to receive the evaluations of others,
but open-mindedness to outside opinions is a very valuable attitude to
cultivate, for it will stimulate and guide you to produce your best ef¬
forts.

To receive specific, practical feedback, you need to ask specific, practi¬

cal questions that will elicit such information. General questions ("What
do you think of this?") typically result in overly general, unhelpful re¬
sponses ("It sounds okay to me"). Be focused in soliciting feedback and
remember that you do have the right to ask people to be constructive in
their comments; that is, to provide suggestions for improvement rather
than just say what they think is wrong. For example, you can say, "What
do you know about me that you think will help me maintain my moti¬
vation to stay in school—even if it takes two years longer than I
planned? Or you can ask, "Do you have any ideas about how I can cut
my expenses by 10 percent each month?"

Step SB: What adjustments are necessary? As a result of your review, you
may discover that the alternative you selected is not feasible or is not leading
to satisfactory results. Suppose that in the sample problem, you cannot find
additional sources of mcome that will allow you to work part-time instead of
full-time. In that case, you simply have to go back and review the other al¬
ternatives to identify another possible course of action. At other times, you
may fmd that the alternative you selected is succeeding fairly well but
 Solving Complex Problems 449

requires some adjustments as you continue to work toward your desired out¬
comes. In fact, this is a typical situation that you should expect to occur. Even
when things initially appear to be working reasonably well, an active thinker
continues to ask questions such as "What might I have overlooked?" and
"How could I have done this differently?" Of course, asking—and trying to
answer—questions like this is even more essential if solutions are hard to
come by (as they usually are in real-world problems) and if you are to retain
the flexibility and optimism you need to tackle a new option.

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 11.2

Analyzing A Problem in Your Life
As you worked your way through this section, it was suggested that you apply
the problem-solving method to an important unsolved problem in your own
life. If you have not done so, this Thinkings—^Writing Activity provides you with
the opportunity to do it now. Select from your own life a problem that you are
currently grappling with and have not been able to solve. After selecting one,
strengthen your acceptance of the problem by using one or more of the strate¬
gies described on page 439 and describing your efforts. Discuss your problem
with other class members to generate fresh perspectives and unusual alterna¬
tives that might not have occurred to you.
In your journal, write each of the questions that make up the problem¬
solving method: then write specific responses to the questions. Although you
may not reach a “guaranteed" solution to your problem, you will deepen your
understanding of the problem and develop a concrete plan of action that will
help you move in the right direction. Implement your plan of action and mon¬
itor the results.

Described below are common problems other students have described.

Your instructor may have you work in a group with other class members to
analyze one of these problems as a way of preparing you to analyze one of
your own.

Problem 1: My Major
The most important unsolved problem that exists for me is the inability to
make that crucial decision of what to major in. I want to be secure with re¬
spect to both money and happiness when I make a career for myself, and
I don't want to make a mistake in choosing a field of study. I want to make
this decision before beginning the next semester so that I can start imme¬
diately in my career. I've been thinking about managerial studies. How¬
ever, I often wonder if I have the capacity to make executive decisions
when I can't even decide on what I want to do with my life.
450 Chapter 11 Solvmg Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

Problem 2: Taking Tests

One of my problems is my difficulty in taking tests. It's not that I don't
study. What happens is that when I get the test I become nervous and my
mind goes blank. For example, in my social science class, the teacher told
the class on Tuesday that there would be a test on Thursday. That after¬
noon I went home and began studying for the test. By Thursday I knew
most of the work, but when the test was handed out, I got nervous and my
mind went blank. For a long time I just stared at the test, and I ended up
failing it.

Problem 3: Smoking
My problem is "the weed." I have been smoking cigarettes for over five
years. At first I did it because I liked the image and most of my friends
were smoking as well. Gradually, I got hooked. It's such a part of my life
now, I don t know if I can quit. Having a cup of coffee, studying, talking to
people it just seems natural to have a cigarette in my hand. I know there
are a lot of good reasons for me to stop. I've even tried a few times, but I
always ended up bumming cigarettes from friends and then giving up
entirely. I don't want my health to go up in smoke, but I don't know what
to do.

Problem 4: Learning English

One of the serious problems in my life is learning English as a second lan¬
guage. It is not so easy to learn a second language, especially when you
live in an environment where only your native language is spoken. When
I came to this country three years ago, I could speak almost no English. I
have learned a lot, but my lack of fluency is getting in the way of my stud¬
ies and my social relationships.

Problem 5: Drinking
This is my first year of college. One disturbing thing I have encountered is
the amount of drinking that students engage in when they socialize. Al¬
though I enjoy drinking in moderation, most students drink much more
than "in moderation" at parties. They want to "get drunk," "lose control,"
"get wasted." And the parties aren't just on weekends—they're every
night of the week! The problem is that there is a lot of pressure for me to
join in the drinking and partying. Most of the people you enjoy being with
are joining in, and I don't want to be left out of the social life of the college.
But it's impossible to party so much and still keep up to date with my
course work. And all that drinking certainly isn't good for me physically.
But on the other hand, I don't want to be excluded from the social life, and
when I try to explain that I don't enjoy heavy drinking, my friends make
me feel immature and a little silly. What should I do?
 Solving Social Problems 451

Solving Social Problems

The problems we have analyzed up until this point are "personal" problems
in the sense that they represent individual challenges we encounter as we live
our lives. Problems are not only of a personal nature, however. We also face
problems as members of a community, society, and the world. As with per¬
sonal problems, we need to approach these kinds of problems in an orga¬
nized and thoughtful way in order to explore the issues, develop a clear
understanding, and decide on an informed plan of action. For example,
racism and prejudice directed toward African Americans, Hispanics, Asians,
Jews, homosexuals, and other minority groups seems to be on the rise at
many college campuses. There has been an increase of overt racist incidents
at colleges and universities during the past several years, which is particu¬
larly disturbing given the lofty egalitarian ideals of higher education. Experts
from different fields have offered a variety of explanations to account for this
behavior. Consider why you believe these racial and ethnic incidents are oc¬
curring with increasing frequency.
Making sense of a complex, challenging situation like this is not a sim¬
ple process. Although the problem-solving method we have been using in this
chapter is a powerful approach, its successful application depends on having
sufficient information about the situation we are trying to solve. Therefore it
is often necessary for us to research articles and other sources of information
to develop informed opinions about the problem we are investigating.
The famous newspaperman H. L. Mencken once said, "To every complex
question there is a simple answer—and it's wrong!" We have seen in this
chapter that complex problems do not have simple solutions, whether or not
they are personal problems or larger social problems like racial prejudice or
world hunger. We have also seen that by working through these complex
problems thoughtfully and systematically, we can achieve a deeper under¬
standing of their many interacting elements, as well as develop and imple¬
ment strategies for solving them.
Becoming an effective problem solver does not mean merely applying a
problem-solving method in a mechanical fashion, any more than becoming a
mature critical thinker involves mastering a set of thinking skills. Rather,
solving problems, like thinking critically, reflects a total approach to making
sense of experience. When we think like problem solvers, we approach the
world in a distinctive way. Instead of avoiding difficult problems, we have
the courage to meet them head-on and the determination to work them
through. Instead of acting impulsively or relying exclusively on the advice of
others, we are able to make sense of complex problems in an organized way
and develop practical solutions and initiatives.
A sophisticated problem solver employs all the critical thinking abilities
we have examined in this book. And while we might agree with Mencken's
452 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

evaluation of simple answers to complex questions, we might endorse a

rephrased version: "To many complex questions there are complex an¬
swers—and these are well worth pursuing."

Thinking Passages .

The next section of this chapter presents two articles dealing with significant
social problems. The first, "Young Hate," by David Shenk, examines the prob¬
lem of intolerance on college campuses. The information provides a founda¬
tion for thoughtful analysis of this troubling problem and perhaps for
productive solutions. The second article, "When Is It Rape?", by Nancy Gibbs,
addresses another current and complicated problem on college campuses.

THINKING*-* WRITING ACTIVITY 11.3

Analyzing a Social Problem

Work with one of the articles—either the one that interests you more or the one
you are assisned. After reading the article carefully, identify and analyze the
problem being discussed, using the problem-solving method developed in
this chapter. Write answers to the questions on pages 437-438.

from Young Hate

by David Shenk

Death to gays. Here is the relevant sequence of events: On Monday night

Jerry Mattioli leads a candlelight vigil for lesbian and gay rights. Gays
are trash. On Tuesday his name is in the school paper and he can hear
whispers and feel more, colder stares than usual. On Wednesday morn¬
ing a walking bridge in the middle of the Michigan State campus is
found to be covered with violent epithets warning campus homosexu¬
als to be afraid, very afraid, promising to abolish faggots from existence, and
including messages specifically directed at Mattioli. Beginning Friday
morning fifteen of the perpetrators, a 11 known to Mattioli by name and
face, are rounded up and quietly disciplined by the university. Go home
faggots. On Friday afternoon Mattioli is asked by university officials to
leave campus for the weekend, for his own safety. He does, and a few
hours later receives a phone call from a friend who tells him that his
dormitory room has been torched. MSU's second annual "Cross-
Cultural Week" is over.
"Everything was ruined," Mattioli says. "What wasn't burned was
ruined by smoke and heat and by the water. On Saturday I sat with the
 Thinking Passages 453

fire investigator all day, and we went through the room, literally ash by
ash.... The answering machine had melted. The receiver of the tele¬
phone on the wall had stretched to about three feet long. That's how in¬
tense the heat was."
"Good news!" says Peter Jennings. A recent Washington Post/ABC
News poll shows that integration is up and racial tension is down in
America, as compared with eight years ago. Of course, in any trend
there are fluctuations, exceptions. At the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst, an estimated two thousand whites chase twenty blacks in a
clash after a 1986 World Series game, race riots break out in Miami in
1988 and in Virginia Beach in 1989; and on college campuses across the
country, our nation's young elite experience an entire decade's aberra¬
tion from the poll's findings: incidents of ethnic, religious, and gender-
related harassment surge throughout the eighties.
Greatest hits include Randy Bowman, a black student at the Univer¬
sity of Texas, having to respectfully decline a request by two young men
wearing Ronald Reagan masks and wielding a pistol to exit his eighth-
floor dorm room through the window; homemade T-shirts, Thank God
for AIDS and Aryan by the Grace of God, among others, worn proudly on
campus; Jewish student centers shot at, stoned, and defaced at Mem¬
phis State, University of Kansas, Rutgers (Six million, why not), and else¬
where; the black chairperson of United Minorities Council at U Penn
getting a dose of hi-tech hate via answering machine: We're going to
lynch you, nigger shit. We are going to lynch you.
The big picture is less graphic, but just as dreadful: reports of cam¬
pus harassment have increased as much as 400 percent since 1985.
Dropout rates for black students in predominantly white colleges are as
much as five times higher than white dropout rates at the same schools
and black dropout rates at black schools. The Anti-Defamation League
reports a sixfold increase in anti-Semitic episodes on campuses between
1985 and 1988. Meanwhile, Howard J. Ehrlich of the National Institute
Against Prejudice and Violence reminds us that "up to 80 percent of ha¬
rassed students don't report the harassment." Clearly, the barrage of
news reports reveals only the tip of a thoroughly sour iceberg.
Colleges have responded to incidents of intolerance—and the subse¬
quent demands of minority rights groups—with the mandatory ethnic
culture classes and restrictions on verbal harassment. But what price
tranquility? Libertarian and conservative student groups, faculty, and
political advisors lash out over limitations on free speech and the im¬
proper embrace of liberal political agendas. "Progressive academic ad¬
ministrations," writes University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Charles
Kors in the Wall Street Journal, "are determined to enlighten their morally
benighted students and protect the community from political sin."
Kors and kind bristle at the language of compromise being attached
to official university policy. The preamble to the University of Michi¬
gan's new policy on discriminatory behavior reads, in part, "Because
454 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

there is tension between freedom of speech, the right of individuals to

be free from injury caused by discrimination, and the University's duty
to protect the educational process ... it may be necessary to have vary¬
ing standards depending on the locus of regulated conduct." The pol¬
icy tried to "strike a balance" by applying different sets of restrictions to
academic centers, open areas, and living quarters, but in so doing, hit a
wall. Before the policy could go into effect, it was struck down in a
Michigan court as being too vague. At least a dozen schools in the
process of formulating their own policies scurried in retreat as buoyant
free-speech advocates went on the offensive. Tufts University president
Jean Mayer voluntarily dismissed his school's "Freedom of Speech ver¬
sus Freedom from Harassment" policy after a particularly inventive
demonstration by late-night protesters who used chalk, tape, and poster
board to divide the campus into designated free speech, limited speech,
and non-free speech zones. "We're not working for a right to offensive
speech," says admitted chalker Andrew Zappia, co-editor of the con¬
servative campus paper. The Primary Source. "This is about protecting
free speech, in general, and allowing the community to set its own stan¬
dards about what is appropriate....
"The purpose of the Tufts policy was to prosecute people for what
the university described as 'gray area'—meaning unintentional—ha¬
rassment." Zappia gives a hypothetical example: "I'm a Catholic living
in a dorm, and I put up a poster in my room [consistent with my faith]
saying that homosexuality is bad. If I have a gay roommate or one who
doesn't agree with me, he could have me prosecuted, not because I
hung it there to offend him, but because it's gray area harassment.
The policy was well intended, but it was dangerously vague. They used
words like stigmatizing, offensive, harassing—words that are very diffi¬
cult to define."
Detroit lawyer Walter B. Connolly, Jr., disagrees. He insists that it's
quite proper for schools to act to protect the victims of discrimination as
long as the restrictions stay out of the classroom. "Defamation, child
pornography, fighting words, inappropriate comments on the radio—
there are all sorts of areas where the First Amendment isn't the preeminent
burning omnipotence in the sky.... Whenever you have competing inter¬
ests of a federal statute [and] the Constitution, you end up balancing."
If you want to see a liberal who follows this issue flinch, whisper into
his or her ear the name Shelby Steele. Liberals don't like Steele, an
(African American) English professor at California's San Jose State; they
try to dismiss him as having no professional experience in the study of
racial discrimination. But he's heavily into the subject, and his analyses
are both lucid and disturbing. Steele doesn't favor restrictions on
speech, largely because they don't deal with what he sees as the prob¬
lem. "You don't gain very much by trying to legislate the problem away,
curtailing everyone's rights in the process," he says. In a forum in which
almost every one roars against a shadowy, usually nameless contingent
 Thinking Passages 455

of racist thugs, Steele deviates, choosing instead to accuse the accusers.

He blames not the racists, but the weak-kneed liberal administrators
and power-hungry victims' advocates for the mess on campuses today.
"Racial tension on campus is the result more of racial equality than
inequality," says Steele. "On campuses today, as throughout society,
blacks enjoy equality under the law—a profound social advance¬
ment. ... What has emerged in recent years ... in a sense as a result of
progress ... is a politics of difference, a troubling, volatile politics in
which each group justifies itself, its sense of worth and its pursuit of
power, through difference alone." On nearly every campus, says Steele,
groups representing blacks, Hispanics, Asians, gays, women, Jews, and
any combinations therein solicit special resources. Asked for—often de¬
manded, in intense demonstrations—are funds for African-American
(Hispanic ...) cultural centers, separate (face it, segregated) housing,
ethnic studies programs, and even individual academic incentives—at
Penn State, minority students are given $275 per semester if they earn a
C average, twice that if they do better than 2.75.
These entitlements, however, do not just appear deus ex machina. Part
two of Steele's thesis addresses what he calls the "capitulation" of cam¬
pus presidents. To avoid feelings of guilt stemming from past discrimi¬
nation against minority groups, Steele says, "[campus administrators
have] tended to go along with whatever blacks put on the table, rather
than work with them to assess their real needs.... Administrators
would never give white students a theme house where they could be
'more comfortable with people of their own kind,' yet more and more
universities are doing this for black students." Steele sees white frus¬
tration as the inevitable result.
"White students are not invited to the negotiating table from which
they see blacks and others walk away with concessions," he says. "The
presumption is that they do not deserve to be there, because they are
white. So they can only be defensive, and the less mature among them
will be aggressive."
Course, some folks see it another way The students fighting for mi¬
nority rights aren't wicked political corrupters, but champions of a
cause far too long suppressed by the white male hegemony. Responsive
administrators are engaged not in capitulation, but in progress. And
one shouldn't look for the cause of this mess on any campus, because he
doesn't live on one. His address used to be the White House, but then
he moved to 666 St. Cloud Road. Ronald Reagan, come on down.
Dr. Manning Marble, University of Colorado: "The shattering assault
against the economic, social, and political status of the black American
community as a whole [is symbolized by] the Reagan Administration in
the 1980s. The Civil Rights Commission was gutted; affirmative action
became a 'dead letter'; social welfare, health care, employment training,
and educational loans were all severely reduced. This had a dispropor¬
tionately more negative impact upon black youth."
456 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

The "perception is already widespread that the society at large is

more permissive toward discriminatory attitudes and behaviors, and
less committed to equal opportunity and affirmative action," concluded
a 1988 conference at Northern Illinois University. John Wiener, writing
in The Nation, attacks long-standing institutions of bigotry, asserting, for
example, that "racism is endemic to the fraternity subculture," and
praises the efforts of some schools to double the number of minority
faculty and increase minority fellowships. On behalf of progressives
across the land, Wiener writes off Shelby Steele as someone who is con¬
tent to "blame the victim."
So the machine has melted, the phone has stretched to where it is use¬
less. This is how intense the heat is. Liberals, who largely control the ad¬
ministration, faculty, and students7 rights groups of leading academic
institutions, have, with virtually no intensive intellectual debate, incul¬
cated schools with their answers to the problem of bigotry. Conserva¬
tives, with a long history of insensitivity to minority concerns, have
been all but shut out of the debate, and now want back in. Their inten¬
sive pursuit of the true nature of bigotry and the proper response to it—
working to assess the "real needs" of campuses rather than simply
bowing to pressure—deserves to be embraced by all concerned parties,
and probably would have been by now but for two small items: (a) Rea¬
gan, their fearless leader, clearly was insensitive to ethnic/feminist con¬
cerns (even Steele agrees with this); and (b) some of the more coherent
conservative pundits still show a blatant apathy to the problems of big¬
otry in this country. This has been sufficient ammunition for liberals
who are continually looking for an excuse to keep conservatives out of
the dialogue. So now we have clashes rather than debates: on how
much one can say, on how much one should have to hear. Two nega¬
tives: one side wants to crack down on expression, the other on aware¬
ness. The machine has melted, and it7s going to take some consensus to
build a new one. Intellectual provincialism will have to end before
young hate ever will.

A Month in the Life of Campus Bigotry

April 1.
Vandals spray-paint "Jewhaters will pay" and other slogans on the of¬
fice walls of The Michigan Daily (University of Michigan) in response to
editorials condemning Israel for policies regarding the Palestinians.
Pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian shanties defaced; one is burned.
U of M: Fliers circulated over the weekend announce "White Pride
Month."
Southern Connecticut State University reportedly suspends five fra¬
ternity7 officers after racial brawl.
 Thinking Passages 457

April 2.
Several gay men of the University of Connecticut are taunted by two
students, who yell "faggot" at them.

April 3.
The University of Michigan faculty meet to discuss a proposal to re¬
quire students to take a course on ethnicity and racism.

April 4.
Students at the University of California at Santa Barbara suspend hunger
strike after university agrees to negotiate on demands for minority fac¬
ulty hiring and the changed status of certain required courses.

April 5.
The NCAA releases results of survey on black student athletes, report¬
ing that 51 percent of black football and basketball players at predomi¬
nantly white schools express feelings of being different; 51 percent
report feelings of racial isolation; 33 percent report having experienced
at least six incidents of individual racial discrimination.
The New York Times prints three op-ed pieces by students on the sub¬
ject of racial tension on campus.
Charges filed against a former student of Penn State for racial ha¬
rassment of a black woman.

April 6.
University of Michigan: Hundreds of law students wear arm bands,
boycott classes to protest lack of women and minority professors.
Michigan State University announces broad plan for increasing the
number of minority students, faculty, and staff; the appointment of a se¬
nior advisor for minority affairs; and the expansion of multicultural con¬
ferences. "It's not our responsibility just to mirror society or respond to
mandates," President John DiBioggio tells reporters, "but to set the tone."

April 7.
Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan) student newspaper runs re¬
traction of cartoon considered offensive following protest earlier in the
week.
Controversy develops at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook, where a white woman charges a popular black basketball player
with rape. Player denies charges. Charges are dismissed. Protests of
racial and sexual assault commence.

April 12.
Twelve-day sit-in begins at Wayne State University (Michigan) over
conditions for black students on campus.
458 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

April 14.
Racial brawl at Arizona State.

April 20.
Demonstrations at several universities across the country (Harvard,
Duke, Wayne State, Wooster College, Penn State, etc.) for improvements
in black student life.
Separate escort service for blacks started at Penn State out of distrust
of the regular sendee.

April 21.
35 200-student sit-in ends at Arizona State University when administra¬
tors agree to all thirteen demands.

April 24.
Proposed tuition increase at City Universities of New York turns into
racial controversy.

April 25.
After eighteen months in office, Robert Collin, Florida Atlantic Univer¬
sity s first black dean, reveals he has filed a federal discrimination com¬
plaint against the school.
Two leaders of Columbia University's Gay and Lesbian Alliance re¬
ceive death threat. "Dear Jeff, I will kill you butt fucking faggots. Death
to COLA!"

April 26.
A black Smith College (Massachusetts) student finds note slipped un¬
der door, "... African monkey do you want some bananas? Go back to
the jungle...."
40 ' I don't think we should have to constantly relive our ancestors' mis¬
takes," a white student at the University of North Carolina at Greens¬
boro tells a reporter. "I didn't oppress anybody. Blacks are now equal.
You don't see any racial problems anymore."
White Student Union is reported to have been formed at Temple Uni¬
versity in Philadelphia, "City of Brotherly Love."

April 28.
Note found in Brown University (Rhode Island) dorm. "Once upon a
time, Brown was a place where a white man could go to class without
having to look at little black faces, or little yellow faces or little brown
faces, except when he went to take his meals. Things have been going
downhill since the kitchen help moved into the classroom. Keep white
supremecy [sic] alive!!! Join the Brown chapter of the KKK today." Note
is part of series that began in the middle of the month with "Die Ho¬
mos." University officials beef up security, hold forum.
 Thinking Passages 459

April 29.
Controversy reported over proposed ban on verbal harassment at Ari¬
zona State.

April 30.
Anti-apartheid shanty at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, is
defaced. Signs read "Apartheid now," and "Trump Plaza."
University of California at Berkeley: Resolution is passed requiring
an ethnic studies course for all students.
University of Connecticut: Code is revised to provide specific penal¬
ties for acts of racial intolerance.

from When Is It Rape?

by Nancy Gibbs

Be careful of strangers and hurry home, says a mother to her daughter,

knowing that the world is a frightful place but not wishing to swaddle
a child in fear. Girls grow up scarred by caution and enter adulthood ea¬
ger to shake free of their parents' worst nightmares. They still know to
be wary of strangers. What they don't know is whether they have more
to fear from their friends.
Most women who get raped are raped by people they already
know—like the boy in biology class, or the guy in the office down the
hall, or their friend's brother. The familiarity is enough to make them let
down their guard, sometimes even enough to make them wonder af¬
terward whether they were "really raped." What people think of as
"real rape"—the assault by a monstrous stranger in the shadows—ac¬
counts for only one out of five attacks.
So the phrase "acquaintance rape" was coined to describe the rest, all
the cases of forced sex between people who already knew each other,
however casually. But that was too clinical for headline writers, and so
the popular term is the narrower "date rape," which suggests an ugly
ending to a raucous night on the town.
These are not idle distinctions. Behind the search for labels is the cen¬
tral mythology about rape; that rapists are always strangers, and vic¬
tims are women who ask for it. The mythology is hard to dispel because
the crime is so rarely exposed. The experts guess—that's all they can do
under the circumstances—that while one in four women will be raped
in her lifetime, less than 10 percent will report the assault, and less than
5 percent of the rapists will go to jail.
Women charge that date rape is the hidden crime; men complain it is
hard to prevent a crime they can't define. Women say it isn't taken seri¬
ously; men say it is a concept invented by women who like to tease but
not take the consequences. Women say the date-rape debate is the first
time the nation has talked frankly about sex; men say it is women's un-
460 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

conscious reaction to the excesses of the sexual revolution. Meanwhile,

men and women argue among themselves about the "gray area" that
surrounds the whole murky arena of sexual relations, and there is no
consensus in sight.
In court, on campus, in conversation, the issue turns on the elasticity
of the word rape, one of the few words in the language with the power
to summon a shared image of a horrible crime.
At one extreme are those who argue that for the word to retain its im¬
pact, it must be strictly defined as forced sexual intercourse: a gang of
thugs jumping a jogger in Central Park, a psychopath preying on old
women in a housing complex, a man with an ice pick in a side street. To
stretch the definition of the word risks stripping away its power. In this
view, if it happened on a date, it wasn't rape. A romantic encounter is a
context in which sex could occur, and so what omniscient judge will de¬
cide whether there was genuine mutual consent?
Others are willing to concede that date rape sometimes occurs, that
sometimes a man goes too far on a date without a woman's consent. But
this infraction, they say, is not as ghastly a crime as street rape, and it
should not be taken as seriously. The New York Post, alarmed by the
Willy Smith case, wrote in a recent editorial, "if the sexual encounter,
forced or not, has been preceded by a series of consensual activities—
drinking, a trip to the man's home, a walk on a deserted beach at three
in the morning—the charge that's leveled against the alleged offender
should, it seems to us, be different than the one filed against, say, the
youths who raped and beat the jogger."
This attitude sparks rage among women who carry scars received at
the hands of men they knew. It makes no difference if the victim shared
a drink or a moonlit walk or even a passionate kiss, they protest, if the
encounter ended with her being thrown to the ground and forcibly
violated. Date rape is not about a misunderstanding, they say. It is
not a communications problem. It is not about a woman's having
regrets in the morning for a decision she made the night before. It is not
about a "decision" at all. Rape is rape, and any form of forced sex—even
between neighbors, coworkers, classmates and casual friends—is a
crime.
10 A more extreme form of that view comes from activists who see rape
as a metaphor, its definition swelling to cover any kind of oppression of
women. Rape, seen in this light, can occur not only on a date but also in
a marriage, not only by violent assault but also by psychological pres¬
sure. A Swarthmore College training pamphlet once explained that ac¬
quaintance rape spans a spectrum of incidents and behaviors, ranging
from crimes legally defined as rape to verbal harassment and inappro¬
priate innuendo." No wonder, then, that the battles become so heated.
When innuendo qualifies as rape, the definitions have become so slip¬
pery that the entire subject sinks into a political swamp. The only way
to capture the hard reality is to tell the story.
 Thinking Passages 461

A 32-year-old woman was on business in Tampa last year for the

Florida supreme court. Stranded at the courthouse, she accepted a lift
from a lawyer involved in her project. As they chatted on the ride home,
she recalls, "he was saying all the right things, so I started to trust him."
She agreed to have dinner, and afterward, at her hotel door, he con¬
vinced her to let him come in to talk. "I went through the whole thing
about being old-fashioned," she says. "I was a virgin until I was twenty-
one. So I told him talk was all we were going to do."
But as they sat on the couch, she found herself falling asleep. "By
now. I'm comfortable with him, and I put my head on his shoulder. He's
not tried anything all evening, after all." Which is when the rape came.
"I woke up to find him on top of me, forcing himself on me. I didn't
scream or run. All I could think about was my business contacts and
what if they saw me run out of my room screaming rape."
"I thought it was my fault. I felt so filthy, I washed myself over and
over in hot water. Did he rape me? I kept asking myself. I didn't consent.
But who's gonna believe me? I had a man in my hotel room after mid¬
night." More than a year later, she still can't tell the story without a visi¬
ble struggle to maintain her composure. Police referred the case to the
state attorney's office in Tampa, but without more evidence it decided
not to prosecute. Although her attacker has admitted that he heard her
say no, maintains the woman, "he says he didn't know that I meant no.
He didn't feel he'd raped me, and he wanted to see me again."
Her story is typical in many ways. The victim herself may not be sure
right away that she has been raped, that she had said no and been phys¬
ically forced into having sex anyway. And the rapist commonly hears
but does not heed the protest. "A date rapist will follow through no
matter what the woman wants because his agenda is to get laid," says
Claire Walsh, a Florida-based consultant on sexual assaults. "First
comes the dinner, then a dance, then a drink, then the coercion begins."
Gentle persuasion gives way to physical intimidation with alcohol as
the ubiquitous lubricant. "When that fails, force is used," she says.
"Real men don't take no for an answer."
The Palm Beach case serves to remind women that if they go ahead
and press charges, they can expect to go on trial along with their at¬
tacker, if not in a courtroom then in the court of public opinion. The
New York Times caused an uproar on its own staff not only for publish¬
ing the victim's name but also for laying out in detail her background,
her high-school grades, her driving record, along with an unattributed
quote from a school official about her "little wild streak." A freshman at
Carleton College in Minnesota, who says she was repeatedly raped for
four hours by a fellow student, claims that she was asked at an admin¬
istrative hearing if she performed oral sex on dates. In 1989 a man
charged with raping at knife point a woman he knew was acquitted in
Florida because his victim had been wearing lace shorts and no under¬
wear.
462 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

From a purely legal point of view, if she wants to put her attacker in
jail, the survivor had better be beaten as well as raped, since bruises be¬
come a badge of credibility. She had better have reported the crime right
away, before taking the hours-long shower that she craves, before burn¬
ing her clothes, before curling up with the blinds down. And she would
do well to be a woman of shining character. Otherwise the strict con¬
structionist definitions of rape will prevail in court. "Juries don't have a
great deal of sympathy for the victim if she's a willing participant up to
the nonconsensual sexual intercourse," says Norman Kinne, a prosecu¬
tor in Dallas. "They feel that many times the victim has placed herself
in the situation." Absent eyewitnesses or broken bones, a case comes
down to her word against his, and the mythology of rape rarely lends
her the benefit of the doubt.
She should also hope for an all-male jury, preferably composed of fa¬
thers with daughters. Prosecutors have found that women tend to be
harsh judges of one another—perhaps because to find a defendant
guilty is to entertain two grim realities: that anyone might be a rapist,
and that every woman could find herself a victim. It may be easier to be¬
lieve, the experts muse, that at some level the victim asked for it. "But
just because a woman makes a bad judgment, does that give the guy a
moral right to rape her?" asks Dean Kilpatrick, director of the Crime
Victim Research and Treatment Center at the Medical University of
South Carolina. The bottom line is. Why does a woman's having a
drink give a man the right to rape her?"
Last week the Supreme Court waded into the debate with a 7-to-2
ruling that protects victims from being harassed on the witness stand
with questions about their sexual history. The Justices, in their first de¬
cision on "rape shield laws," said an accused rapist could not present
evidence about a previous sexual relationship with the victim unless he
notified the court ahead of time. In her decision. Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor wrote that "rape victims deserve heightened protection
against surprise, harassment, and unnecessary invasions of privacy."
That was welcome news to prosecutors who understand the reluc¬
tance of victims to come forward. But there are other impediments to
justice as well. An internal investigation of the Oakland police depart¬
ment found that officers ignored a quarter of all reports of sexual as¬
saults or attempts, though 90 percent actually warranted investigation.
Departments are getting better at educating officers in handling rape
cases, but the courts remain behind. A New York City task force on
women in the courts charged that judges and lawyers were routinely
less inclined to believe a woman's testimony than a man's.
20 The present debate over degrees of rape is nothing new; all through
history, rapes have been divided between those that mattered and those
that did not. For the first few thousand years, the only rape that was
punished was the defiling of a virgin, and that was viewed as a prop-
 Thinking Passages 463

erty crime. A girl's virtue was a marketable asset, and so a rapist was of¬
ten ordered to pay the victim's father the equivalent of her price on the
marriage market. In early Babylonian and Hebrew societies, a married
woman who was raped suffered the same fate as an adulteress—death
by stoning or drowning. Under William the Conqueror, the penalty for
raping a virgin was castration and loss of both eyes—unless the vio¬
lated woman agreed to marry her attacker, as she was often pressured
to do. "Stealing an heiress" became a perfectly conventional means of
taking—literally—a wife.
It may be easier to prove a rape case now, but not much. Until the
1960s it was virtually impossible without an eyewitness; judges were
often required to instruct jurors that "rape is a charge easily made and
hard to defend against; so examine the testimony of this witness with
caution." But sometimes a rape was taken very seriously, particularly if
it involved a black man attacking a white woman—a crime for which
black men were often executed or lynched.
Susan Estrich, author of Real Rape, considers herself a lucky victim.
This is not just because she survived an attack 17 years ago by a stranger
with an ice pick, one day before her graduation from Wellesley. It's be¬
cause police, and her friends, believed her. "The first thing the Boston
police asked was whether it was a black guy," recalls Estrich, now a
University of Southern California law professor. When she said yes and
gave the details of the attack, their reaction was, "So you were really
raped." It was an instructive lesson, she says, in understanding how
racism and sexism are factored into perceptions of the crime.
A new twist in society's perception came in 1975, when Susan
Brownmiller published her book Against Our Will: Men, Women and
Rape. In it she attacked the concept that rape was a sex crime, arguing
instead that it was a crime of violence and power over women.
Throughout history, she wrote, rape has played a critical function. "It is
nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation, by which
all men keep all women in a state of fear."
Out of this contention was bom a set of arguments that have become
politically correct wisdom on campus and in academic circles. This
view holds that rape is a symbol of women's vulnerability to male in¬
stitutions and attitudes. "It's sociopolitical," insists Gina Rayfield, a
New Jersey psychologist. "In our culture men hold the power, politi¬
cally, economically. They're socialized not to see women as equals."
This line of reasoning has led some women, especially radicalized vic¬
tims, to justify flinging around the term rape as a political weapon, refer¬
ring to everything from violent sexual assaults to inappropriate
innuendoes. Ginny, a college senior who was really raped when she was
sixteen, suggests that false accusations of rape can serve a useful purpose.
"Penetration is not the only form of violation," she explains. In her view,
rape is a subjective term, one that women must use to draw attention to
464 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

other, nonviolent, even nonsexual forms of oppression. "If a woman did

falsely accuse a man of rape, she may have had reasons to," Ginny says.
"Maybe she wasn't raped, but he clearly violated her in some way."
Catherine Comins, assistant dean of student life at Vassar, also sees
some value in this loose use of "rape." She says angry victims of vari¬
ous forms of sexual intimidation cry rape to regain their sense of power.
"To use the word carefully would be to be careful for the sake of the vi¬
olator, and the survivors don't care a hoot about him." Comins argues
that men who are unjustly accused can sometimes gain from the expe¬
rience. "They have a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would neces¬
sarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of
self-exploration. 'How do I see women?' 'If I didn't violate her, could I
have?' 'Do 1 have the potential to do to her what they say I did?' Those
are good questions."
Taken to extremes, there is an ugly element of vengeance at work
here. Rape is an abuse of power. But so are false accusations of rape, and
to suggest that men whose reputations are destroyed might benefit be¬
cause it will make them more sensitive is an attitude that is sure to back¬
fire on women who are seeking justice for all victims. On campuses
where the issue is most inflamed, male students are outraged that their
names can be scrawled on a bathroom-wall list of rapists and they have
no chance to tell their side of the story.
Rape is what you read about in the New York Post about seventeen
little boys raping a jogger in Central Park," says a male freshman at a
liberal-arts college, who learned that he had been branded a rapist after
a one-night stand with a friend. He acknowledges that they were both
very drunk when she started kissing him at a party and ended up back
m his room. Even through his haze, he had some qualms about sleep¬
ing with her: "I'm fighting against my hormonal instincts, and my
moral instincts are saying, 'This is my friend and if I were sober, I
wouldn t be doing this.'" But he went ahead anyway. "When you're
drunk, and there are all sorts of ambiguity, and the woman says 'Please,
please' and then she says no sometime later, even in the middle of the
act, there still may very well be some kind of violation, but it's not the
same thing. It's not rape. If you don't hear her say no, if she doesn't say
it, if she's playing around with you—oh, I could get squashed for say-
ing it there is an element of say no, mean yes."
The morning after their encounter, he recalls, both students woke up
hung over and eager to put the memory behind them. Only months
later did he learn that she had told a friend that he had torn her cloth¬
ing and raped her. At this point in the story, the accused man starts us¬
ing the language of rape. "I felt violated," he says, "I felt like she was
taking advantage of me when she was very drunk. I never heard her say
'No!,' 'Stop!,' anything." He is angry and hurt at the charges, worried
that they will get around, shatter his reputation and force him to leave
the small campus.
 Thinking Passages 465

So here, of course, is the heart of the debate. If rape is sex without

consent, how exactly should consent be defined and communicated,
when and by whom? Those who view rape through a political lens tend
to place all responsibility on men to make sure that their partners are
consenting at every point of a sexual encounter. At the extreme, sexual
relations come to resemble major surgery, requiring a signed consent
form. Clinical psychologist Mary P. Koss of the University of Arizona in
Tucson, who is a leading scholar on the issue, puts it rather bluntly: "It's
the man's penis that is doing the raping, and ultimately he's responsi¬
ble for where he puts it."
Historically, of course, this has never been the case, and there are
some who argue that it shouldn't be—that women too must take re¬
sponsibility for their behavior, and that the whole realm of intimate en¬
counters defies regulation from on high. Anthropologist Lionel Tiger
has little patience for trendy sexual politics that make no reference to bi¬
ology. Since the dawn of time, he argues, men and women have always
gone to bed with different goals. In the effort to keep one's genes in the
gene pool, "it is to the male advantage to fertilize as many females as
possible, as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible." For the fe¬
male, however, who looks at the large investment she will have to make
in the offspring, the opposite is true. Her concern is to "select" who
"will provide the best set-up for their offspring." So, in general, "the
pressure is on the male to be aggressive and on the female to be coy."
No one defends the use of physical force, but when the coercion in¬
volved is purely psychological, it becomes hard to assign blame after
the fact. Journalist Stephanie Gutmann is an ardent foe of what she calls
the date-rape dogmatists. "How can you make sex completely politi¬
cally correct and completely safe?" she asks. "What a horribly bland,
unerotic thing that would be! Sex is, by nature, a risky endeavor, emo¬
tionally. And desire is a violent emotion. These people in the date-rape
movement have erected so many rules and regulations that I don t
know how people can have erotic or desire-driven sex."
Nonsense, retorts Cornell professor Andrea Parrot, co-author of Ac¬
quaintance Rape: The Hidden Crime. Seduction should not be about lies,
manipulation, game playing or coercion of any kind, she says. "Too bad
that people think that the only way you can have passion and excite¬
ment and sex is if there are miscommunications, and one person is
forced to do something he or she doesn't want to do." The very plea¬
sures of sexual encounters should lie in the fact of mutual comfort and
consent: "You can hang from the ceiling, you can use fruit, you can go
crazy and have really wonderful sensual erotic sex, if both parties are
consenting."
It would be easy to accuse feminists of being too quick to classify sex
as rape, but feminists are to be found on all sides of the debate, and
many protest the idea that all the onus is on the man. It demeans
women to suggest that they are so vulnerable to coercion or emotional
466 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

manipulation that they must always be escorted by the strong arm of

the law. You can't solve society's ills by making everything a crime,"
says Albuquerque attorney Nancy Hollander. "That comes out of the
sense of overprotection of women, and in the long run that is going to
be harmful to us."
What is lost in the ideological debate over date rape is the fact that
men and women, especially when they are young, and drunk, and
aroused, are not very good at communicating. "In many cases," says Es-
trich, the man thought it was sex, and the woman thought it was rape,
and they are both telling the truth." The man may envision a celluloid
seduction, in which he is being commanding, she is being coy. A woman
may experience the same event as a degrading violation of her will.
That some men do not believe a woman's protests is scarcely surprising
in a society so drenched with messages that women have rape fantasies
and a desire to be overpowered.
By the time they reach college, men and women are loaded with cul¬
tural baggage, drawn from movies, television, music videos and "bodice
ripper" romance novels. Over the years they have watched Rhett sweep
Scarlett up the stairs in Gone With the Wind; or Errol Flynn, who was
charged twice with statutory rape, overpower a protesting heroine who
then melts in his arms; or Stanley rape his sister-in-law Blanche du Bois
while his wife is in the hospital giving birth to a child in A Streetcar
Named Desire. Higher up the cultural food chain, young people can read
of date rape in Homer or Jane Austen, watch it in Don Giovanni or Rwo-
letto.
Tire messages come early and often, and nothing in the feminist rev¬
olution has been able to counter them. A recent survey of sixth- to ninth-
graders in Rhode Island found that a fourth of the boys and a sixth of
the girls said it was acceptable for a man to force a woman to kiss him
or have sex if he has spent money on her. A third of the children said it
would not be wrong for a man to rape a woman who had had previous
sexual experiences.
Certainly cases like Palm Beach, movies like The Accused and novels
like Avery Corman s Prized Possessions may force young people to reex¬
amine assumptions they have inherited. The use of new terms, like ac¬
quaintance rape and date rape, while controversial, has given men and
women the vocabulary they need to express their experiences with both
force and precision. This dialogue would be useful if it helps strip away
some of the dogmas, old and new, surrounding the issue. Those who
hope to raise society's sensitivity to the problem of date rape would do
well to concede that it is not precisely the same sort of crime as street
rape, that there may be very murky issues of intent and degree in¬
volved.
On the other hand, those who downplay the problem should come
to realize that date rape is a crime of uniquely intimate cruelty. While
 Writing Thoughtfully About Solving Problems 467

the body is violated, the spirit is maimed. How long will it take, once
the wounds have healed, before it is possible to share a walk on a beach,
a drive home from work or an evening's conversation without always
listening for a quiet alarm to start ringing deep in the back of the mem¬
ory of a terrible crime?

Writing Thoughtfully About Solving Problems

The purpose of this chapter is to help you think more like a problem solver,
an ability that will enhance every area of your life. It will help you solve per¬
sonal problems, such as the student facing a reduction in financial aid that we
considered earlier in the chapter. It will help you analyze complex social
problems, such as those described in the previous articles on racism and date
rape. And it will also help you in your writing, an area that will be the focus
of the rest of this chapter.
Problem solving provides you with a framework that you can use in
much of your writing. Using a problem-solving approach will assist you in
organizing your ideas as well as generating information to write about. In
some academic situations you may sometimes worry about making the essay
"long enough," and using a problem-solving approach will often help you in
this regard. In fact, now you may have so much to say that you can't imagine
how to get it all into a short essay. This closely parallels a "real-life" work sit¬
uation where you have gathered information or conducted a study over a
long period of time and find yourself facing mountains of data.
When you base your writing on a problem-solving approach, you are
likely to find that you know much more about the problem you are writing
about and its alternative solutions than any of your readers, including your
professor.
That is not usually the case when you write an analysis of a poem for
your literature professor or an explanation of the causes of inflation for your
economics professor. Academic writing often feels uncomfortable because
you, the writer, know that your professor, the audience, almost certainly al¬
ready knows as much as you do and probably more. So you are left with the
uncomfortable feeling of "Why am I telling this person what he/she already
knows?"
So using a problem-solving approach in your writing takes care of some
difficulties for you, but creates others. Just because your audience knows so
little about the subject, your problem, you need to provide enough back¬
ground information and history of the problem for your discussion of the al¬
ternative solutions to make sense to your audience. The following principles
for writing about problem solving are not etched in stone; you may have
good reason for not following some of them. Yet in general, they should help
468 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

you convert your answers to the questions in the problem-solving model into
a clear, correct, and concise essay.

1. Be acutely aware of the needs of your audience. You may have lived with the
problem under consideration for so long, or researched it so thoroughly,
that you almost cannot remember a time when the details were not famil¬
iar to you. However, your readers need specific details of background, his¬
tory, special circumstances, and so forth, and they need this information
presented in an order that they can understand. So unless you have some
pressing reason not to do so, begin with this information in the clearest or¬
der you can devise. As you write your essay, continually ask yourself,
"Does my audience have all the necessary information to understand the
point I am trying to make?"
2. Present all the information your audience needs in order to understand the prob¬
lem before you begin to discuss alternative solutions.
3. Include a thesis statement indicating that you are going to discuss alternative so¬
lutions.
4. Discuss each alternative solution by explaining what it would involve and pre¬
senting its advantages and disadvantages. Provide enough specific informa¬
tion to allow your audience to "see" the advantages and disadvantages;
don't just say, "This job would pay less." Instead, say, "This job would pay
$2.00 per hour, or $40.00 per week, less than my present job, so I would not
be able to meet my fixed monthly expenses."
5. Present the alternative solutions in the order that will most help the audience un¬
derstand them and understand why you would choose the one you do.
6. Conclude your essay by choosing one solution, or some combination of solutions,
and explain clearly why you chose it. If you have had time to implement the
solution, tell whether it is working or not. If you have not yet implemented
it, explain how you will judge whether it is working or not.
 Writing Thoughtfully About Solving Problems 469

WRITING PROJECT

This chapter has included both readings and Thinking^Writing Activities

that encouraged you to become familiar with the problem-solving model and
the steps required for implementing it. Be sure to reread what you wrote for
those activities, as you may be able to use some of it for help in completing
this project.

WRITING PROJECT Analyzing a Problem

Write an essay in which you apply the five-step problem-solving
method to a major local, national, or international problem in need
of solution. Locate articles that provide background information
and analysis of the problem. Be sure to document these sources
honestly and correctly. After you have drafted your essay, revise it to
the best of your ability. Follow instructions given by your professor
as to length, format, and so forth.

Begin by considering the key elements in the Thinking-* Writing Model.

Purpose
You have a variety of purposes here. You can use this opportunity to learn
about a major problem in order to arrive at the best possible solution—and
thus become a better-informed citizen. In doing so, you will be practicing the
creative and critical thinking involved in the problem-solving model. Also,
you can sharpen your revision skills by carefully working through the revi¬
sion questions presented on pages 472-473.

Audience
Something interesting occurs with audience here: while working through the
problem-solving model, you are your own audience, for in describing the
problem and working through the alternative solutions, you may find your¬
self actually choosing the solution to the problem. As you begin to shape the
answers to the questions in the model into an essay, your audience becomes
readers other than yourself, and their needs begin to take over your attention.
Your classmates can be a valuable audience for peer review of a draft, re¬
acting as intelligent readers who do not know as much as you about the prob¬
lem and its possible solutions, but who become interested as they read your
description of it and your evaluation of the possible solutions. Finally, your
professor remains the audience who will judge how well you have planned,
drafted, and revised. As a writing teacher, he or she cares about a clear focus,
logical organization, specific details and examples, and correctness. Keep
these in mind as you revise, edit, and proofread.
470 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

Subject
Problems are problems precisely because they are difficult to think about and
to solve. Sometimes this is true because we don't have enough accurate in¬
formation to arrive at an intelligent solution, and sometimes this is true be¬
cause we think we know what the solution is, but for some reason are
reluctant to take action. Therefore, we often tend to.put off making a choice
and taking action for as long as possible. It may be helpful to consider that not
choosing and acting is choosing to do nothing. Doing nothing actually is one
choice that can be included in the problem-solving method. Evaluating the
advantages and disadvantages of doing nothing can help us to determine
whether or not it will produce a solution to the problem.
Writer
This assignment affords you the opportunity to present an informed analysis
of an important social issue, based on your research and analysis. Many
people have opinions on a wide variety of issues, but most of these opinions
are uninformed, lacking the support of thoughtful reasons or compelling evi¬
dence. As a critical thinker and thoughtful writer, it is necessary for you to
develop the habit of explaining your opinions in a careful, organized, well-
supported fashion.

The Writing Process

The following sections will guide you through the stages of generating, plan-
ning, drafting, and revising as you work on an essay about solving an im¬
portant problem. Try to be particularly conscious of both the critical thinking
you do when working through the problem-solving model, and the critical
thinking and decision making you do when you revise.

Generating Ideas
You may find yourself in one of three situations:

1. If your professor's instructions specify a particular local, national, or in¬

ternational problem for you to write on, you must begin there. You might
begin by working through the problem-solving model and writing down
answers to each question, based on what you know now. Then you will be
able to see what you need to know and thus what to look for as you re¬
search the problem.
2. If your professor s instructions allow you to choose any important local,
national, or international problem, you might begin by brainstorming a
list of each of these types of problems. Then you can select the one that
seems most important, or the one in which you are most interested, or the
one about which you already know the most.
 The Writing Process 471

3. If your professor's instructions allow you to write on a personal problem,

you might begin by brainstorming a list of problems you now face. It
might help to make three columns: school problems, work problems, and
personal problems. Then you can pick one, preferably one that needs to be
solved soon and for which you need to gather information, to work on.

Whichever situation you found yourself in, once you have worked
through the problem-solving model, you will almost certainly spot gaps in
your information. Think about how much additional information you would
need in order to evaluate each of the alternative solutions. Locate that infor¬
mation, asking for assistance from a librarian if necessary. Once you have
filled in all the gaps and decided on which solution to choose—and how you
will know if it is working—you are ready to switch your attention to pre¬
senting your information to your audience.

Defining a Focus
Write a thesis statement that will make clear to your audience that you are go¬
ing to explore a problem-solving situation. You might decide to write some¬
thing like "After thinking about the problem carefully, I realize that I have
only two possible choices." Or you might decide to name the possible
choices: "America's possible solutions to its budget problem include raising
more revenue, cutting the budget, or some combination of the two." You may
even decide to announce your chosen solution in your thesis statement: Af¬
ter carefully weighing the alternatives, raising more revenue while continu¬
ing to cut the budget appears to be the best choice."

Organizing Ideas
The five-step method for solving problems fits well with essay structure.
Your description of the problem together with necessary history and other
background information will give you a working introduction, to end with
your thesis statement. Each of the alternative solutions, explained in as much
detail as possible, along with its advantages and disadvantages, will provide
one section of the body (one or more paragraphs). Your decision on the best
solution and how it could be monitored will provide a conclusion.

Drafting
Begin with the paragraph easiest to draft. Keep your written answers to each
part of the problem-solving model in front of you.
Remember to begin each section of the body with a topic sentence that
names the alternative solution being discussed. If you are discussing advan¬
tages or disadvantages in separate paragraphs, draft topic sentences that pre¬
pare your readers for that information—sentences such as "Unfortunately,
cutting the budget further has serious disadvantages for many Americans."
Then provide the audience with as much information as necessary.
472 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

You will, of course, have to decide on the best order for the sections. Ex¬
periment until you discover the one that seems most helpful to your audi¬
ence. Switch the sections around on your word processor; even cut up a
printout and tape it together in different kinds of order until you discover one
that seems smooth and logical.
In your conclusion, name the solution you have chosen. You may want to
explain why, if you think that will not be obvious to your audience. Remem¬
ber to explain how you will monitor the results of your solution.

Revising
Ideally, at this point, you should put your draft aside for a day or two. If
deadlines won't permit you to do that, then at least take a break before you
tty to revise. When you are ready to "re-see” your writing, begin by reading
it through slowly, preferably aloud. If possible, have someone whose opinion
you respect read it; ask for feedback. Then work through the hierarchy of re¬
vision concerns that follows. Remember that you have at least one and pos¬
sibly two decisions to make for each question: (1) Is improvement needed?
and (2) If improvement is needed, how, exactly, can I make my draft better?

1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.

■ Does it fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ Is the organization logical?
■ Do you provide enough evidence?
■ Is your point of view consistent?
■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs?
■ Have you documented information from your sources accurately?
■ Have you used quotation marks around direct quotes or set the quotes off
by indenting?

2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.

■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
■ Is the introduction appropriate for the rest of the draft?
■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a "visible" structure?
■ If you are working with an "invisible" structure, is your focus clearly im¬
plied?
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
■ Does each body paragraph develop a different idea?
■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Is your conclusion effective?

3. Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.

■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
 Student Writing 473

■ Are sentences with blended quotations (that is, quotations that are inte¬
grated into the syntax of the sentence instead of introduced with "He
said ..or "she said ..complete and easy to read?
■ Are quotations shortened with ellipsis marks accurate and readable?
■ Are there several choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Are any sentences vague?
■ Do any sentences need to be corrected for standard English grammar and
usage?

4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.

■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are any words misspelled?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
■ Does your paper make a good impression by being neat?
■ Is there anything else you could do to improve your draft?

Proofreading
After you prepare a final draft, check again for correct grammar and punctu¬
ation. Proofread carefully for omitted words or punctuation marks. Rim your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread carefully
for the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.

Student Essays
The following essays show how two students responded to this assign¬
ment—one student writing about a personal problem and citing informally,
the other writing about a social problem and citing according to Modern Lan¬
guage Association (MLA) format.

STUDENT WRITING
Problem Solving Made Easy
by Jana Riggle

Life is full of problems; some are easier to solve than others, and
some never get solved. I have had a problem for the last two years
that, so far, I have not been able to solve. My problem is that my
mother and my boyfriend do not get along. This problem has always
seemed too overwhelming to deal with. I didn t know where to start,
until I read Thinking Critically, by John Chaffee. This book shows its
readers how to break their problems into steps in order to reach
474 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

solutions. It gave me a place to start, and I will now try to solve my

problem, usins the book’s five-step problem solving process.
Thinking Critically says, "The first step in solving problems is to de¬
termine exactly what the central issues of the problems are." In my
problem the central issue is that my mother, due to her dislike of my
boyfriend, refuses to acknowledge him, which in turn hurts me. I want
my mother to not mind being in the same room with my boyfriend for
more than five minutes. Most of all, I want my mother to stop fighting
with him.
The second step to solving a problem according to Thinking Criti¬
cally is to "examine each of the possible actions that might help solve
the problem.” It also helps, the book says, to determine the actions
which are impossible or the boundaries of the problem. The bound¬
ary of my problem is that I will not leave my boyfriend in order for my
mother to stop fighting with him. This leaves me with the alternatives
of going on with the situation as it is, having my mother and my
boyfriend sit down and try to talk out their differences, or not having
my boyfriend around my house.
The third step in Thinking Critically is to determine the advantages
and disadvantages of each alternative. The first alternative of letting
the problem continue and hope it will solve itself presents me with
the disadvantage that I have to continue to put up with the problem
and it may never be solved. The advantage is that maybe, just maybe,
it will solve itself without any interference from me. My second alter-'
native of having my boyfriend and my mother sit down and try to talk
out their differences has the disadvantage that she may decide she
dislikes him more. The advantage is that she may start to see in him
what I do and start to get along with him. The last alternative of not
having him near my house has the advantage of not having to listen to
her put him down, but the disadvantage that the problem will not
really be solved.
The fourth step, the book says, is to find a solution by pursuing an
alternative and acting on it. The alternative that looks best to me is to
try to have my mother and my boyfriend sit down and have a civil
conversation. I think they will agree to it if I tell them how much it
means to me, that I love them both, and that I just want her to learn to
tolerate him.
The fifth step of this process is to determine how well the solution
is working and what adjustments to the original solution might have to
be made. Since I have not yet tried out my solution, I cannot evaluate

I believe that these five steps really work and that they can sim¬
plify even the most confusing problems. The steps offer specific ways
to move towards solving a problem, which can turn an overwhelming
I problem into something that a person can deal with.
 Student Writing 475

STUDENT WRITING
Critical Thinking about Uncritical Drinking
by Joshua Bartlett

There is widespread asreement that excessive student drinking is a se¬

rious problem on many college campuses. However, there are differ¬
ent views on the causes of this problem and on the best solutions for
it. In this paper I will present some perspectives on the problem of
student drinking and conclude with suggestions on how to deal with
this serious threat to student health and success.
Why do college students drink to excess? According to many ex¬
perts, it is mainly due to the influence of the people around them.
When most students enter college, they do not have a drinking prob¬
lem. However, although few realize it, they are entering a culture in
which alcohol is often the drug of choice, one that can easily destroy
their lives. According to some estimates, 80 to 90 percent of the stu¬
dents on many campuses drink alcohol, and many of them are heavy
drinkers (Engs 543). One study found that nearly 30 percent of univer¬
sity students consume more than 15 alcoholic drinks a week (Gerson
A43). An additional study found that among those who drink at least
once a week, 92 percent of the men and 82 percent of the women
consume at least five drinks in a row, and half said they wanted to get
drunk (Rosenberg 81).
The results of all this drinking are predictably deadly. Virtually all
college administrators agree that alcohol is the most widely used drug
among college students and that its abuse is directly related to emo¬
tional problems and violent behavior, ranging from date rape to death
(Dodge "Campus Crime" A33+; Leatherman A33). For example, at one
university, a 20-year-old woman became drunk at a fraternity party and
fell to her death from the third floor ("Clemson" A3). At another uni¬
versity, two students were killed in a drunk-driving accident after
drinking alcohol at an off-campus fraternity house,- the families of both
students have filed lawsuits against the fraternity (Dodge "Beer Kegs
Banned" A28). When students enter a college or university, they often
become socialized into the alcohol-sodden culture of "higher educa¬
tion,” at both formal and informal parties. The influence of peer pres¬
sure is enormous. Students often find it difficult to resist the pressures
from their friends and fellow students to drink.
However, some observers of young people believe that, although
peer pressure is certainly a factor in excessive college drinking, it is
only one of a number of factors. They point out that the misuse of al¬
cohol is a problem for all youth in our society, not just college stu¬
dents. For example, a recent study by the surgeon general’s office
shows that 1 in 3 teenagers consumes alcohol every week. This abuse
leads to traffic deaths, academic difficulties, and acts of violence
 Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

(Elson 64). Another study based on a large, nationally representative

sample indicates that although college students are more likely to use
alcohol, they tend to drink less per drinking day than nonstudents of
the same age (Crowley 14); in other words, most college students
who drink are more social drinkers than problem drinkers. One survey
of undergraduate students found that college drinking is not as wide¬
spread as many people think (O'Hare 540). The conclusion from this
data is that even though drinking certainly takes place on college cam¬
puses, it is no greater a problem than in the population at large.
Whatever the extent, the misuse of alcohol by college students is
a serious situation with a number of probable causes. Certainly the in¬
fluence of friends, whether in college or out, plays a role, as I’ve al¬
ready discussed. But it is not the only factor. To begin with, there is
evidence that family history is related to alcohol abuse. For example,
one survey of college students found more problem drinking among
students whose parents or grandparents had been diagnosed with al¬
coholism (Perkins and Berkowitz 237-240). Another study found that
college students who come from families with high degrees of con¬
flict display a greater potential for alcoholism (Pardeck 342-343).
Another important factor to consider in the misuse of alcohol by
young people is advertising. A recent article entitled "It Isn’t Miller
Time Yet, and This Bud’s Not for You" underscores the influence adver¬
tisers exert on the behavior of youth (Siler 52). By portraying beer
drinkers as healthy, fun-loving, attractive young people, they create
role models that many youths imitate. In the same way that cigarette
advertisers used to encourage smoking among our youth—without re¬
gard to the health hazards—so alcohol advertisers try to sell as much
booze as they can to whoever will buy it—no matter what the conse¬
quences.
A final factor in the abuse of alcohol is the people themselves. Al¬
though young people are subject to a huge number of influences, in
the final analysis, they are free to choose what they want to do. They
don’t have to drink, no matter what the social pressures. In fact, many
students resist these pressures and choose not to drink excessively or
at all. In short, some students choose to think critically, while others
choose to drink uncritically.
In order to encourage good judgment by more students and to
minimize the causes of excessive drinking, I think that the following
strategies could help solve the college alcohol problem. Only the last
one has any disadvantages to be considered.

(1) Colleges should have orientation and educational programs aimed at prevent¬
ing alcohol abuse, and colleges should give top priority to campaigns against
underage and excessive drinking.
 Student Writing 477

(2) Advertising and promotion of alcoholic beverages on college campuses and in

college publications should be banned. Liquor distributors should not sponsor
campus events. In addition, alcoholic beverage companies should be peti¬
tioned not to target young people in their ads.
(3) Depending on the campus culture, colleges should ban or restrict alcohol use
on campus and include stiff penalties for students who violate the rules.
(4) Students at residential colleges should be able to live in substance-free hous¬
ing, offering them a voluntary haven from alcohol, other drugs, tobacco, and
peer pressure.
(5) Colleges should create attractive alcohol-free clubs or pubs.
(6) Colleges should ban the use of beer kegs, a symbol of cheap and easy avail¬
ability of alcohol.
(7) Fraternities should eliminate all alcohol-based contexts or hazing torments.
(8) Where possible, the on-campus drinking age should be reduced to 18, so that
students won’t be forced to move parties off-campus. At off-campus parties,
there is no college control, and as a result students tend to drink greater quan¬
tities and more dangerous concoctions.
Of course, this suggestion has the disadvantages of being in conflict with laws
in many states or counties and also of seeming to encourage drinking by con¬
necting it even more extensively with social events. But it has the advantages of
control and of eliminating the attraction of what’s forbidden.

In conclusion, alcohol abuse on college campuses is an extremely serious

problem that is threatening the health and college careers of many students. As chal¬
lenging as this problem is, I believe that it can be solved if students, teachers, and
college officials work together in harmony and with determination to implement the
suggestions made in this paper.

Works Cited
"Clemson Issues Ban on Parties Using Alcohol." Chronicle of Higher Education
31 Jan. (1990 : A3.)
Crowley, Joan E. "Educational Status and Drinking Patterns: How Represen¬
tative Are College Students." Journal of Studies on Alcohol 52.1 (1991): 10-
16.
Dodge, Susan. "Campus Crime Linked to Students' Use of Drugs and Alco¬
hol." Chronicle of Higher Education 17 Jan. 1990 : A33+.
_"Use of Beer Kegs Banned by Some Colleges and National Fraterni¬
ties." Chronicle of Higher Education 12 June 1991: A27-28.
Elson, John. "Drink Until You Finally Drop." Time 16 Dec. 1991: 64.
Engs, Ruth C. "Family Background of Alcohol Abuse and Its Relationship to
Alcohol Consumption among College Students: An Unexpected Finding."
Journal of Studies on Alcohol 51.6 (1990): 542-547.
Chapter 11 Solving Problems—Writing to Propose Solutions

Gerson, Mark. "30 Pet. of Ontario's Students Called 'Heavy Drinkers.'"

Chronicle of Higher Education 12 April 1989 : A43.
Leatherman, Courtney. "College Officials Are Split on Alcohol Policies; Some
Seek to End Underage Drinking; Others Try to Encourage 'Responsible'
Use." Chronicle of Higher Education 31 Jan. 1990 : A33-35.
O'Hare, Thomas M. "Drinking in College: Consumption Patterns, Problems,
Sex Differences and Legal Drinking Age." Journal of Studies on Alcohol 51.6
(1990): 536-541.
Pardeck, John T. "A Multiple Regression Analysis of Family Factors Affecting
the Potential for Alcoholism in College Students." Adolescence 26 102
(1991): 341-347.
Perkins, H. Wesley, and Alan D. Berkowitz. "Collegiate COAs and Alcohol
Abuse: Problem Drinking in Relation to Assessment of Parent and Grand¬
parent Alcoholism."Journal of Counseling and Development 69.3 (1991): 237-

Rosenberg, Debra. "Bad Times at Hangover U." Newsweek 19 Nov. 1990 : 81.
Siler, Julie Flynn. "It Isn't Miller Time Yet, and This Bud's Not For You." Busi¬
ness Week 24 June 1991: 52.
 CHAPTER 12

Constructing Arguments—Writing to
Establish Agreement

Critical Thinking Focus: Using reasons, evidence, and logic

Writing Focus: Convincing an audience
Reading Theme: Arguments about important issues
Writing Project: Arguing a position on a significant issue

An Introduction to the Principles of Argument

People who study communication, argument, and rhetoric believe that much
of what we say and write can be defined as argument because most state¬
ments seek listeners' or readers' agreement with the ideas being presented.
Unless someone is just saying "Hmmmm" or "Hello" or is asking a question
only to obtain information, the purpose of his or her statement usually is to
make a point and to convince the audience of its validity. Essays, letters, sto¬
ries, poems, movies—and even paintings and clothes—can be arguments or
have argumentative purposes. However, a separate chapter devoted to argu¬
ment is necessary, even though most of your previous writing has had argu¬
mentative characteristics. Some writing is supposed to be predominantly
argumentative, and you need to know how to produce it and how to analyze
it. Arguing effectively is essential to academic and professional success;
and since politicians and, especially, advertisers use argumentative tech¬
niques on us, we need to increase our understanding of both valid and falla¬
cious arguments.

479
480 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

Classical Concepts
The concepts that guide logical argument are central to Western culture. Ar¬
ticulated by the philosophers and rhetoricians of ancient Greece and Rome,
they have been studied and applied for more than 2,000 years. Even though
emotions, gut reactions, and intuition cannot be brushed aside—because
they are so human logical thinking and the resulting structured arguments
are expected in business, government, and scholarship. Therefore, as a col¬
lege composition student, you have both practical and historical reasons for
giving attention to principles of argument or rhetoric.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle, in his famous work the Rhetoric and in
other writings on logic, is the source of many concepts basic to our ideas of
argument. But even Aristotle, more than three hundred years B.C., was re¬
sponding to earlier works on rhetoric; and to this day, those who have
followed him have modified and redefined his ideas and those of other clas¬
sical rhetoricians. Some of these concepts are ethos, the character of the
speaker/writer; pathos, the effect on the audience; and logos, the logic and
substance of the argument. Other centuries-old concepts are techniques for
generation or discovery of ideas; arrangement of sections of an argument; the
thinking methods of deduction and induction; techniques for refutation; and
moral concerns about the use of rhetorical power for honorable ends.

Links to the Thinking^Writing Model

The classical rhetoricians were concerned with spoken arguments; print was
not a medium for them. Speech is, of course, still essential to human com¬
munication, both person to person and via electronic media. This book con¬
centrates on writing, but the ancient concepts have never gone out of use, and
they function well to promote effective writing. The topics in the Think-
ing<->Writing Model that is the foundation for this book show a contempo¬
rary application of many of those principles.
Notice how subject, purpose, audience, and writer connect in multiple ways
with the concepts of logos, pathos, and ethos. If logos means both content and
the logic of its presentation, logos connects with the Model's topics of subject,
defining a focus, and organizing ideas, as well as with thinking critically. Pathos
connects, of course, with the Model's audience and purpose; ethos, with writer
and also with the editing and proofreading stages of revising, since a well-
finished paper gives a good impression of its writer.
The classical concepts of discovery and arrangement are clearly connected
to the Model's thinking creatively, generating ideas, organizing ideas, and drafting.

Establishing Agreement
Today, the words argument and rhetoric are regularly used in conversation and
in the media differently from the ways they are used in this chapter. Popularly,
 Thinking Critically About Argument 481

argument often means a quarrel, and rhetoric is often used to mean insubstan¬
tial or misleading language (which is connected to the classical concerns about
the use of rhetorical power for honorable ends.) In this chapter, argument
means "speaking or writing in which reasons or evidence support claims or
conclusions," and rhetoric means "the use of the best means of persuasion."
Some people believe that the purpose of argument is to coerce or to
"win." As we have seen in this book, though, critical thinkers strive to de¬
velop the most informed understanding, which involves trying to fully ap¬
preciate other perspectives. Instead of attempting to prove others wrong, a
more desirable purpose is to bring agreement or consensus about the issue
being discussed. Sometimes people are so far apart in their convictions that
agreement cannot be reached and an impasse (or worse) occurs. Sometimes
people "agree to disagree" and work around their differences; but if agree¬
ment comes, good feelings can result in progress or problem solving or other
desired achievements. By thinking critically, you can inspire others to think
critically as well, so that all parties are working together to achieve the clear¬
est understanding rather than splintering into adversarial factions.
Among the argumentative techniques that lead to mutual understanding
are clarifying common principles, identifying differences to see which are im¬
portant and which are trivial, using sound evidence, speaking or writing in a
reasonable tone, acknowledging other points of view, conceding points that
cannot be upheld, and looking for acceptable compromise positions.
This chapter will introduce concepts related to argument, provide readings
and Thinking-^Writing Activities to help you grasp them, and conclude with
a Writing Project that asks you to write a logical, well-organized argument for
a position that is important to you, an argument addressed to an audience that
you hope will agree with your claims. The chapter will be exploring ways to
construct effective arguments and ways to evaluate arguments.

Thinking Critically About Argument

Consider the following dialogue about whether marijuana should be legal¬
ized. Have you participated in such exchanges? In what ways do dialogues
like this differ from written argument? How do such dialogues provide a
starting point for written arguments?

Dennis: Have you read about the medical uses of marijuana—that people
who have cancer, AIDS, and some other diseases might be helped by smok¬
ing? I think some doctors are prescribing it and some states are maybe chang¬
ing their laws. Maybe this will change people's thinking more than all those
discussions of unenforced laws, unjust punishments, and victimless crimes
that have been going on since my uncles were in college.
Caroline: Well, I agree that we need to think about drug laws. But I hope you
agree that we have to be careful. Drugs pose a serious threat to the young
 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

people of our country. Look at all the people who are addicted to drugs, who
have their lives ruined, and who often die at an early age of overdoses. And
think of all the crimes people commit to support their drug habits. So I don't
know if anything that's illegal now should be legalized ... and the laws
should be enforced.
Dennis: That's ridiculous. Smoking marijuana is nothing like using drugs such
as heroin or even cocaine. It follows that smoking marijuana should not be
against the law if it's harmless and maybe even helpful to some sick people.
Caroline: I don't agree. Although marijuana may not be as dangerous as
some other drugs, it does affect things like a driver's ability to judge
distances. And smoking it surely isn't good for you. And I don't think that
anything that is a threat to your health should be legal.
Dennis: What about cigarettes and alcohol? We know that they are danger¬
ous. Medical research has linked smoking cigarettes to lung cancer, emphy¬
sema, and heart disease. Alcohol damages the liver and also the brain. Has
anyone ever proved that marijuana is a threat to our health? And even if it
does turn out to be somewhat unhealthy, it's certainly not as dangerous as
cigarettes and alcohol.
Caroline: That's a good point. But to tell you the truth. I'm not so sure that
cigarettes and alcohol should be legal. And in any case, they are legal. The
fact that cigarettes and alcohol are bad for your health is not reason to legal¬
ize another drug that can cause health problems.
Dennis: Look life is full of risks. We take chances every time we cross the
sheet or climb into our cars. In fact, with all the irresponsible drivers on the
road, driving could be a lot more hazardous to our health than any of the
drugs around. Many of the foods we eat can kill. For example, red meat con¬
tributes to heart disease, and artificial sweeteners can cause cancer. The point
is, if people want to take chances with their health, that's up to them. And
many people in our society like to mellow out with marijuana. I read some¬
where that over 70 percent of the people in the United States think that mar¬
ijuana should be legalized.
Caroline: There's a big difference between letting people drive cars and let-
ting them use dangerous drugs. Society has a responsibility to protect people
from themselves. People often do things that are foolish if they are encour-
aged to or given the opportunity. Legalizing something like marijuana en¬
courages people to use it, especially young people. It follows that many more
people would use marijuana if it were legalized. It's like society saying "This
is all right—go ahead and use it."
Dennis: I still maintain that marijuana isn't dangerous. It's not addictive-
like heroin is and there is no evidence that it harms you. Consequently, any¬
thing that is harmless should be legal.
Caroline: Marijuana may not be physically addictive like heroin, but I think
that it can be psychologically addictive, because people tend to use more and
more of it over time. I know a number of people who spend a lot of their time
 Recognizing Arguments 483

getting high. What about Carl? All he does is lie around and get high. This
shows that smoking it over a period of time definitely affects your mind.
Think about the people you know who smoke a lot—don't they seem to be
floating in a dream world? How are they ever going to make anything of their
lives? As far as I'm concerned, a pothead is like a zombie—living but dead.
Dennis: Since you have had so little experience with marijuana, I don't think
that you can offer an informed opinion on the subject. And anyway, if you do
too much of anything, it can hurt you. Even something as healthy as exercise
can cause problems if you do too much of it. But I sure don't see anything
wrong with toking up with some friends at a party or even getting into a re¬
laxed state by yourself. In fact, I find that I can even concentrate better on my
school work after taking a little smoke.
Caroline: If you believe that, then marijuana really has damaged your brain.
You're just trying to rationalize your drug habit. Smoking marijuana doesn't
help you concentrate—it takes you away from reality. And I don't think that
people can control it. Either you smoke and surrender control of your life, or you
don't smoke because you want to retain control. There's nothing in between.
Dennis: Let me point out something to you. Because marijuana is illegal, or¬
ganized crime controls its distribution and makes all the money out of it. If
marijuana were legalized, the government could tax the sale of it—like ciga¬
rettes and alcohol—and use the money for some worthwhile purpose. For ex¬
ample, many states have legalized gambling and use the money to support
education. In fact, the major tobacco companies have already copyrighted
names for different marijuana brands—like "Acapulco Gold." Obviously
they believe that marijuana will soon become legal.
Caroline: The fact that the government can make money out of something
doesn't mean that they should legalize it. We could also legalize prostitution
or muggings and then tax the proceeds. Also, even if the cigarette companies
are prepared to sell marijuana, that doesn't mean that selling it makes sense.
After all, they're the ones who are selling us cigarettes....

Can you think of other views on the subject of legalizing marijuana? Can you
think of other subjects on which dialogues are taking place now?

Recognizing Arguments
The preceding discussion is an illustration of two people's engaging in dia¬
logue, the systematic exchange of ideas. Participating in this sort of dialogue
with others is one of the keys to thinking critically. It stimulates you to de¬
velop your mind by carefully examining the way you make sense of the
world. Discussing issues with others encourages you to be mentally active, to
ask questions, to view issues from different perspectives, to develop reasons
that support conclusions, and to write convincingly.
484 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

This chapter focuses on that last quality of thinking critically—support¬

ing conclusions with reasons—because when we offer reasons to support a
conclusion, we are presenting an argument, the essence of most college and
business writing.

Argument: a form of thinking in which certain statements

(reasons or evidence) are offered in support of another
statement (a conclusion or a claim).

In the dialogue, Dennis presents the following argument for legalizing

marijuana:

Reason: Marijuana might help some people who have serious diseases.
Reason: Marijuana isn't dangerous like heroin and cocaine.
Reason: Governments could tax the sale of marijuana the way they do ciga¬
rettes and alcohol.
Conclusion: Marijuana should be legalized.

Expanding the definition of argument given in the box, we can define the
main ideas that make up an argument:

Reasons or Evidence: statements that support another statement

(a conclusion, claim, or thesis), justify it, or make it more
probable.

Conclusion, Claim, or Thesis: a statement that explains, asserts,

or predicts on the basis of statements (known as reasons) that
are offered as evidence for it.

The type of thinking that uses argument—reasons in support of conclusions—

is known as reasoning, and it is a type of thinking explained throughout this
book. We are continually trying to explain, justify, and predict through the
process of reasoning, and often we must present our thinking in writing.
Of course, our reasoning—and that of others—is not always correct. The
reasons someone offers may not really support the conclusion they are sup¬
posed to, or a conclusion may not really follow from the reasons stated, or the
reasons may be questionable or wrong. These difficulties are illustrated in a
number of arguments contained in the discussion on marijuana.
 Recognizing Arguments 485

Nevertheless, whenever we accept a conclusion as likely or true on the

basis of certain reasons, or whenever we offer reasons to support a conclu¬
sion, we are using arguments—even if our reasoning is weak or faulty and
needs to be improved.
Let us return to the discussion about marijuana. After Dennis presents
one argument, Caroline presents another, giving reasons that lead to a con¬
clusion that conflicts with the one Dennis has arrived at:

Reason: Drugs pose a very serious threat to the young people of our country.
Reason: Many crimes are committed to support drug habits.
Conclusion: As a result, society has to have drug laws and enforce them to
convince people of the seriousness of the situation.

Which of Dennis's or Caroline's arguments do you see as reasonable? Which

seem weak or faulty?

Cue Words for Arguments

English, like other languages, provides guidance in our efforts to identify rea¬
sons and conclusions. Certain key words, or cue words, signal that a reason is
being offered in support of a conclusion or that a conclusion is being announced
on the basis of certain reasons. After you read the following list, go back to the
dialogue and see how and when Dennis and Caroline used these words.
Here are some commonly used cue words for reasons and conclusions:

Cue Words Signaling Reasons

smce in view of
for first, second
because in the first (second) place
as shown by may be inferred from
as indicated by may be deduced from
given that may be derived from
assuming that for the reason that

Cue Words Signaling Conclusions

therefore then
thus it follows that
hence thereby showing
so demonstrates that
(which) shows that allows us to infer that
(which) proves that suggests very strongly that
implies that you see that
points to leads me to believe that
as a result allows us to deduce that
consequently
 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

Of course, identifying reasons, conclusions, and arguments involves more

than looking for cue words. The words and phrases just listed do not always
signal reasons and conclusions, and in many cases arguments are made with¬
out the use of cue words. Cue words, however, do alert us that an argument
is being offered. Careful use of cue words helps us to write effective argu¬
ments. y

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 12.1

Thinking About Arguments
Write responses in your journal. If you have the chance, discuss your re¬
sponses with your classmates and note where agreements and disagreements
occur.

1. Review the discussion on marijuana and underline cue words signaling that
Dennis and Caroline are giving reasons or announcing conclusions.
2. Identify one argument you find convincing and one you find unconvincing. Write your
reasons for your opinions, referring to specific places in the dialogue.

THINKINGWRITING ACTIVITY 12.2

Analyzing Extended Arguments About Legalizing Drugs

The following two essays discuss the issue of whether drugs should be legal¬
ized. The first passage, "Drugs,” is by essayist and novelist Gore Vidal. The sec¬
ond, "The Case for Slavery," is by New York Times editor and columnist A. M.
Rosenthal. After carefully reading the essays, answer these questions:

1. Try to state in one sentence the thesis, conclusion, or claim of each essay.
Where did each writer make his thesis clear? Did you find the placement ef¬
fective? Why or why not?
2. Identify two or three specific reasons that each writer gives for his thesis.
3. What impression does each essay give of its writer? Why?
4. Do you agree with either writer’s position? Explain. What shapes your iden¬
tity as an audience for these arguments?
5. Can you connect these questions with ethos, I030S, and pathos as defined
on page 482?
 Recognizing Arguments 487

Drugs
by Gore Vidal

It is possible to stop most drug addiction in the United States within a

very short time. Simply make all drugs available and sell them at cost.
Label each drug with a precise description of what effect—good and
bad—the drug will have on the taker. This will require heroic honesty.
Don't say the marijuana is addictive or dangerous when it is neither, as
millions of people know—unlike "speed," which kills most unpleas¬
antly, or heroin, which is addictive and difficult to kick.
For the record, I have tried—once—almost every drug and liked
none, disproving the popular Fu Manchu theory that a single whiff of
opium will enslave the mind. Nevertheless many drugs are bad for cer¬
tain people to take and they should be told why in a sensible way.
Along with exhortation and warning, it might be good for our citi¬
zens to recall (or learn for the first time) that the United States was the
creation of men who believed that each man has the right to do what he
wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere with his neigh¬
bor's pursuit of happiness. (That his neighbor's idea of happiness is
persecuting others does confuse matters a bit.)
This is a startling notion to the current generation of Americans.
They reflect a system of public education which has made the Bill of
Rights, literally, unacceptable to a majority of high school graduates
who now form the "silent majority"—a phrase which that underesti¬
mated wit Richard Nixon took from Homer who used it to describe the
dead.
Now one can hear the warning rumble begin: If everyone is allowed
to take drugs everyone will and the GNP will decrease, the Commies
will stop us from making everyone free, and we shall end up a race of
zombies, passively murmuring "groovy" to one another. Alarming
thought. Yet it seems most unlikely that any reasonably sane person
will become a drug addict if he knows in advance what addiction is go¬
ing to be like.
Is everyone reasonably sane? No. Some people will always become
drug addicts just as some people will always become alcoholics, and it
is just too bad. Every man, however, has the power (and should have
the legal right) to kill himself if he chooses. But since most men don't,
they won't be mainliners either. Nevertheless, forbidding people things
they like or think they might enjoy only makes them want those things
all the more. This psychological insight is, for some mysterious reason,
perennially denied by our governors.
It is a lucky thing for the American moralist that our country has al¬
ways existed in a kind of time-vacuum: We have no public memory of
anything that happening before last Tuesday. No one in Washington to-
488 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

day recalls what happened during the years alcohol was forbidden to
the people by a Congress that thought it had a divine mission to stamp
out Demon Rum—launching, in the process, the greatest crime wave in
the country's history, causing thousands of deaths from bad alcohol,
and creating a general (and persisting) contempt among the citizenry
for the laws of the United States. i
The same thing is happened today. But the government has learned
nothing from past attempts at prohibition, not to mention repression.
Last year when the supply of Mexican marijuana was slightly cur¬
tailed by the Feds, the pushers got the kids hooked on heroin and
deaths increased dramatically, particularly in New York. Whose fault?
Evil men like the Mafiosi? Permissive Dr. Spock? Wild-eyed Dr. Leary?
No.
10 The Government of the United States was responsible for those
deaths. The bureaucratic machine has a vested interest in playing cops
and robbers. Both the Bureau of Narcotics and the Mafia want strong
laws against the sale and use of drugs because if drugs are sold at cost
there would be no money in it for anyone.
If there was no money in it for the Mafia, there would be no friendly
playground pushers, and addicts would not commit crimes to pay for the
next fix. Finally, if there was no money in it, the Bureau of Narcotics would
wither away, something they are not about to do without a struggle.
Will anything sensible be done? Of course not. The American people
are as devoted to the idea of sin and its punishment as they are to mak¬
ing money—and fighting drugs is nearly as big a business as pushing
them. Since the combination of sin and money is irresistible (particu¬
larly to the professional politician), the situation will only grow worse.

The Case for Slavery

by A. M. Rosenthal

Across the country, a scattered but influential collection of intellectuals

is intensely engaged in making the case for slavery.
With considerable passion, these Americans are repeatedly ex¬
pounding the benefits of not only tolerating slavery but legalizing it:
It would make life less dangerous for the free. It would save a great
deal of money. And since the economies could be used to improve the
lot of the slaves, in the end they would be better off.
The new antiabolitionists, like their predecessors in the nineteenth
century, concede that those now in bondage do not themselves see the
benefits of legalizing their status.
5 But in time they will, we are assured, because the beautiful part of le¬
galization is that slavery would be designed so as to keep slaves paci¬
fied with the very thing that enslaves them!
The form of slavery under discussion is drug addiction. It does not
 Recognizing Arguments 489

have every characteristic of more traditional forms of bondage. But they

have enough in common to make the comparison morally valid—and
the campaign for drug legalization morally disgusting.
Like the plantation slavery that was a foundation of American soci¬
ety for so long, drug addiction largely involves specifiable groups of
people. Most of the enchained are children and adolescents of all colors
and black and Hispanic adults.
Like plantation slavery, drug addiction is passed on from generation
to generation. And this may be the most important similarity: Like plan¬
tation slavery, addiction can destroy among its victims the social re¬
sources most valuable to free people for their own betterment—family
life, family traditions, family values.
In plantation-time America, mothers were taken from their children.
In drug-time America, mothers abandon their children. Do the children
suffer less, or the mothers?
10 Antiabolitionists argue that legalization would make drugs so cheap
and available that the profit for crime would be removed. Well-supplied
addicts would be peaceful addicts. We would not waste billions for jails
and could spend some of the savings helping the addicted become
drug-free.
That would happen at the very time that new millions of Americans
were being enticed into addiction by legalization—somehow.
Are we really foolish enough to believe that tens of thousands of
drug gang members would meekly steal away, foiled by the marvels of
the free market?
Not likely. The pushers would cut prices, making more money than
ever from the ever-growing mass market. They would immediately in¬
crease the potency and variety beyond anything available at any Gov¬
ernment-approved narcotics counters.
Crime would increase. Crack produces paranoid violence. More per¬
missiveness equals more use equals more violence.
15 And what will legalization do to the brains of Americans drawn into
drug slavery by easy availability?
Earlier this year, an expert drug pediatrician told me that after only
a few months babies born with crack addiction seemed to recover. Now
we learn that stultifying behavioral effects last at least through early
childhood. Will they last forever?
How long will crack affect neurological patterns in the brain of adult
crack users? Dr. Gabriel G. Nahas of Columbia University argues in his
new book. Cocaine: The Great White Plague, that the damage may be irre¬
versible. Would it not be an act of simple intelligence to drop the legal¬
ization campaign until we find out?
Then why do a number of writers and academicians, left to right,
support it? I have discussed this with antidrug leaders like Jesse Jack-
son, Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal of Phoenix House, and William J. Bennett,
who search for answers themselves.
490 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

Perhaps the answer is that the legalizers are not dealing with reality
in America. I think the reason has to do with class.
20 Crack is beginning to move into the white middle and upper classes.
That is a tragedy for those addicted.
However, it has not yet destroyed the communities around which their
lives revolve, not taken over every street and doorjvay. It has not passed
generation to generation among them, killing the continuity of family.
But in ghetto communities poverty and drugs come together in a cat¬
alytic reaction that is reducing them to social rubble.
The antiabolitionists, virtually all white and well-to-do, do not see or
do not care. Either way they show symptoms of the callousness of class.
That can be a particularly dangerous social disorder.

Arguments as Inferences
When you construct arguments, you are constructing views of the world by
means of your ability to infer. As you saw in Chapter 10, inferring is a think¬
ing process used to reason from what one already knows (or believes to be
the case) to new knowledge or beliefs. This is usually what you do when you
construct arguments: work from reasons you know or believe in to conclu¬
sions based on them.
Just as you can use inferences to make sense of different types of situa¬
tions, you can also construct arguments for different purposes. We have al¬
ready noted that some people believe in using arguments to coerce or to
'win" and we saw how a more desirable goal is to clarify issues, develop mu¬
tual understanding, and if possible, bring about agreement or consensus on
the issue being discussed. Notice how you can work toward agreement when
you construct arguments to do any of the following:

■ Decide
■ Explain
■ Predict
■ Persuade

An example of each of these different types of arguments follows. After ex¬

amining each example, construct an argument of the same type related to is¬
sues in your own life. Identify an audience for each argument.

Constructing Arguments to Decide

Reason: Throughout my life. Eve always been interested in all different kinds
of electricity.
Reason: There are many attractive job opportunities in the field of electrical
engineering.
Conclusion: Electrical engineering would be a good major for me.
Audience: Myself, my parents, my academic adviser, the scholarship office.
 Arguments as Inferences 491

An argument to decide
Reason:
Reason:
Conclusion:
Audience:

Constructing Arguments to Explain

Reason: I was delayed leaving my house because my dog needed emergency
walking.
Reason: There was an unexpected traffic jam caused by motorists slowing
down to view an overturned chicken truck.
Conclusion: Therefore, I couldn't help being late for our appointment.
Audience: The person waiting for me.

An argument to explain
Reason:
Reason:
Conclusion:
Audience:

Constructing Arguments to Predict

Reason: Some people will always drive faster than the speed limit allows, no
matter whether the limit is 55 or 65 mph.
Reason: Car accidents are more likely at higher speeds.
Conclusion: It follows that a reinstated 65 mph limit will result in more acci¬
dents.
Audience: Legislators, voters, drivers.

An argument to predict
Reason:
Reason:
Conclusion:
Audience:

Constructing Arguments to Persuade

Reason: Chewing tobacco can lead to cancer of the mouth and throat.
Reason: Young people sometimes begin chewing tobacco because they see
ads that feature sports heroes they admire.
Conclusion: Therefore, ads for chewing tobacco should be banned.
Audience: Parents, voters, legislators, advertising agencies, media execu¬
tives.
492 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

An argument to persuade
Reason:
Reason:
Conclusion:
Audience:

Evaluating Arguments
To construct good arguments, you must be skilled in evaluating the effec¬
tiveness, or soundness, of arguments already constructed. You must investi¬
gate the aspects of each argument independently to determine the soundness
of the argument as a whole:

1. How true are the reasons being offered to support the conclusion?
2. To what extent do the reasons support the conclusion, claim, or thesis—or
to what extent does the conclusion follow from the reasons offered?

Truth: How True Are the Supporting Reasons?

The first aspect of an argument that you must evaluate is the truth of the rea¬
sons being used to support a conclusion. Ask yourself these questions: Does
each reason make sense? What evidence is the writer offering as part of each
reason? Are any reasons consistent with my own experience? Are reasons
based on sources that can be trusted?
You use these questions and others like them to analyze the reasons of¬
fered and to determine how true they are. As you saw in Chapter 10, Believ¬
ing and Knowing, evaluating the kinds of beliefs usually found as reasons in
arguments is a complex and ongoing challenge.

Validity: Do the Reasons Support the Claim or Conclusion?

In addition to determining whether the reasons are true, evaluating argu¬
ments involves investigating the relationship between the reasons and the
claim or the conclusion (which becomes the thesis of a piece of writing that
argues a position on an issue).
When the reasons support the conclusion in such a way that the conclu¬
sion follows from the reasons being offered, the argument is valid. (In formal
logic, the term validity is reserved for deductively valid arguments in which
the conclusions follow necessarily from the premises.) If, however, the rea¬
sons do not support the conclusion, if the conclusion does not follow from the
reasons being offered, the argument is invalid. Remember that valid and true
do not have the same meaning; as has just been pointed out, you must first
evaluate the truth of a reason, then determine validity.
 Evaluating Arguments 493

Valid Argument: an argument in which the reasons support the

conclusion in such a way that the conclusion follows from the
reasons offered.

Invalid Argument: an argument in which the reasons do not

support the conclusion; the conclusion does not follow from
the reasons offered.

One way to focus on the concept of validity is to assume that all the rea¬
sons in the argument are true, then try to determine how probable they make
the conclusion. The following is an example of one type of valid argument:

Reason: Anything that is a threat to our health should not be legal.

Reason: Marijuana is a threat to our health.
Conclusion: Therefore, marijuana should not be legal.

This is a valid argument because if we assume that the reasons are true,
its conclusion does necessarily follow. Of course, we may not agree that ei¬
ther or both of the reasons are true; in that case, we will not agree with the
conclusion. Nevertheless, the structure of the argument is valid. This particu¬
lar form of thinking is known as deduction, and we will examine deductive
reasoning more closely in the pages ahead.
Following is a different type of argument:
Reason: As part of a project in my social science class, we selected 100 stu¬
dents in the school to be interviewed. We took special steps to ensure that
these students were representative of the student body as a whole (total stu¬
dents: 4,386). We asked the selected students whether they thought the
United States should actively try to overthrow foreign governments that the
United States disapproves of. Of the 100 students interviewed, 88 students
said the United States should definitely not be involved in such activities.
Conclusion: We can conclude that most students in this school believe the
United States should not be engaged in attempts to actively overthrow for¬
eign governments that the United States disapproves of.
This is a persuasive argument because if we assume that the reason is
true, that reason provides strong support for the conclusion. In this case, the
key part of the reason is the statement that the 100 students selected were rep¬
resentative of the entire 4,386 students at the school. To evaluate the truth of
the reason, we might want to investigate the procedure used to select the 100
students in order to determine whether this sample was in fact representative
of all the students. (Notice that the conclusion carefully said "in this school."
It did not say imprecisely "most students.")
494 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

This particular form of thinking is an example of induction, and we will

explore inductive reasoning more fully in the pages ahead.

The Soundness of Arguments

When an argument includes both true reasons and a valid structure, the ar¬
gument is considered sound. When an argument has either false reasons or
an invalid structure, however, the argument is considered unsound.

True reasons
* Sound
Valid structure
False reasons
Valid structure + Unsound
True reasons
Invalid structure
E Unsound
False reasons
Invalid structure + Unsound

From this chart, we are reminded that in terms of arguments, truth and
validity are not identical concepts. An argument can have true reasons and an
invalid structure, or false reasons and a valid structure. In both cases the ar¬
gument is unsound. Consider the following argument:

Reason: Professor Davis believes that megadoses of vitamins can cure colds.
Reason: Davis is a professor of computer science
Conclusion: Megadoses of vitamins can cure colds.

This argument is obviously not valid: even if we assume that the reasons
are true, the conclusion does not follow. Professor Davis’s expertise with
computers does not provide her with special knowledge in nutrition and
medicine. This invalid thinking is neither structurally nor factually accept¬
able. It is clearly not a sound argumen t.
Now, consider this argument:

Reason: For a democracy to function most effectively, the citizens should be

able to think critically about the major social and political issues.
Reason: Education plays a key role in developing critical thinking abilities.
Conclusion: Therefore education plays a key role in ensuring that a democ¬
racy is functioning most effectively.

A good case could be made for the soundness of this argument because the
reasons are persuasive and the argument structure is valid. Of course, some¬
one might contend that one or both of the reasons are not completely true,
which illustrates an important point about the arguments we construct and
 Evaluating Arguments 495

evaluate. Many of the arguments we encounter in life fall somewhere be¬

tween complete soundness and complete unsoundness because often we are
not sure if our reasons are completely true. Throughout this book, we have
found that developing accurate beliefs is an ongoing process and that our be¬
liefs are subject to clarification and revision. As a result, the conclusion of any
argument can be only as certain as the reasons supporting the conclusion.
To sum up, evaluating arguments effectively involves both the truth of
the reasons and the validity of the argument structure. The degree of sound¬
ness an argument has depends on how accurate the reasons turn out to be
and how valid the argument's structure is.

THINKING^WRITING ACTIVITY 12.3

Analyzing Extended Arguments About an AIDS Vaccine

Read the followins articles about a vaccine for AIDS and write answers to these
questions in your journal.
1. What is the claim or thesis of each article?
2. Identify two or three reasons that each writer sives for his claim.
3. Evaluate, or explain how you would proceed in evaluating, one reason in
each article.
4. Which argument seems more convincing to you, and why?
5. What impression do you receive of these writers from these articles? How
do you characterize their tones of voice?

from For a National Effort to Develop a

Vaccine to Counteract AIDS
by Robert E. Pollack

The time has come for the Government to underwrite a nationwide ef¬
fort to produce an effective vaccine against HTLV III, the virus that
causes AIDS. Though a frightening new disease, AIDS is no longer so
novel that such an effort would be premature.
Samples of the virus have been isolated and their entire sets of genes
decoded. The human populations for testing and eventual inoculation
with a vaccine exist and are ready to volunteer. Yet the communities of
physicians, and of public and corporate researchers, seem unable to or¬
ganize the process. Why is the nation unwilling or unable to expend the
effort and money to launch an applied-biology and bioengineering ef¬
fort to develop and test a vaccine?
Let's examine what is known about viruses. Most viruses cannot
"find" just any human cell; they have to attach to a cell's surface, and
496 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

the attachment has to be a specific match between a portion of the cell's

surface membrane and a portion of the virus's coat. HTLV III is ordi¬
nary in its habits much like other viruses. It is remarkable only for the
fastidious way in which it chooses the cell it will attach to, enter and
take over.
HTLV III must find and attach to a particular kind of white blood cell.
This sort of cell is the very one everyone's body needs in order to rec¬
ognize and reject a multiplicity of micro-organisms, fungi, parasites,
yeasts and bacteria. That is the reason AIDS patients suffer from so
many different diseases. As the virus takes over these cells, the body
loses its defenses and eventually succumbs to one or many of a host of
infectious agents.
5 Two scientific reasons are given for the reluctance to begin a national
effort to develop a vaccine. One is that AIDS might be caused by a fam¬
ily of closely related variants of the same virus and that therefore no
vaccine could be effective. The other is that there are no animals suitable
for initial testing of a vaccine and thus no way to be sure a vaccine is safe
for testing in people.
It seems to me and to some colleagues that these objections, though
sound, are not conclusive. The exquisite specificity of HTLV Ill's recog¬
nition of certain white blood cells suggests that all variants of the virus
will have in common at least one part of their outer coat—the region
that finds and binds to this specific kind of cell.
Gene-splicing is the answer to the second objection and the key to
making a vaccine. HTLV III is a new virus, but its known properties so
far suggest that it is not so exotic as to be beyond the grasp of recombi¬
nant DNA techniques. All the genes of more than one AIDS virus have
been isolated and chemically identified. This knowledge should permit
scientists to put genes from an AIDS virus into a bacterium. Once they
are there, the bacterium, grown in large quantities, can be the source of
material for testing as a vaccine. And vaccines produced this way
would be totally incapable of causing AIDS.
In the absence of an animal model for AIDS, such vaccines could not
now be tested in volunteers, because Government regulations require
that new vaccines be first tested in an animal. These rules no longer
make sense for vaccines produced by recombinant techniques.
There is at least one other reason for our nation's inability to act: ir¬
rational fear and hostility directed at a minority. The population at risk
and ready to volunteer for testing is largely homosexual. Our political
leaders apparently do not wish to be involved with this minority. As a
result, the clock runs out on thousands of victims without even the be¬
ginning of an effort to develop the vaccine that might prevent new cases
from occurring. This is a social disaster,
to Consider what we could be doing. We have a population of homo¬
sexuals available for prospective study of such vaccines. These men
 Evaluating Arguments 497

like the estimated million or so Americans who already have antibod¬

ies to HTLV III, are highly motivated to participate in the large-scale
studies necessary to develop an optimal vaccine.
We have as well a population of perhaps 100,000 [This figure repre¬
sents the estimate in 1985. In 1990, estimates of persons with AIDS-
related complex in the United States ranged as high as 1 million
(Editor's note).] people with what is known medically as “AIDS-related
complex"—a syndrome in which a person has an AIDS virus in his
blood but does not show the full set of symptoms characteristic of AIDS.
In addition, there are perhaps 10,000 people with AIDS whose white
cells are drastically reduced. These 10,000 have a currently irreversible
disease, and many have repeatedly offered themselves for any experi¬
mental treatments.
A vaccine for any virus-caused cancer will have to be made by re¬
combinant techniques in order to separate the gene for the vaccine from
all cancer-causing genes in the virus. Therefore, if we proceed immedi¬
ately to organize biotechnology for the production and testing of re¬
combinant AIDS vaccines, we gain time on the eventual production of
vaccines for leukemias, lymphomas and other human tumors that are
likely to be caused by viruses.
All physicians have taken an oath to do no harm. But in fact they do
harm by sitting quietly by, or referring AIDS victims to another physi¬
cian or hoping the disease will quietly go away after it destroys a few
thousand homosexual men and narcotics addicts. It is not enough to of¬
fer succor and solace. Physicians and scientists should lobby actively
for a nationwide effort to develop an AIDS vaccine.

from Why an AIDS Vaccine?

by Charles Krauthammer

The reviews are in on President Clinton's dramatic declaration pledg¬

ing the United States to finding an AIDS vaccine, moonshotlike, within
10 years. Apart from AIDS activists who complain that the president
did not commit serious moonshot money to the enterprise (“cheap
talk"—Larry Kramer), the reaction was mostly favorable. Who, after all,
can be against a vaccine against anything?
No one seems to want to raise the obvious, if indelicate, question:
Why embark on a huge national venture to create a vaccine for a disease
that is already extraordinarily preventable?
Unlike most communicable diseases, AIDS is not contracted casually.
Unlike TB, it is not contracted by being coughed on in the subway. Unlike
dysentery, it is not contracted by drinking the wrong water. To get AIDS
you must, in all but the rarest cases, engage in very complicated consen¬
sual social behavior, namely unsafe sex or intravenous drug abuse.
It would be nice to live in a world where one could engage in such
498 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

behaviors while enjoying vaccine-induced immunity. But is that really

a top national priority? Would any president propose as a top national
priority an anti-lung-cancer vaccine so that people who smoke—48 mil¬
lion Americans do—could do so with immunity?
5 Nor do presidents call for a 10-year campaign to produce a vaccine
against cirrhosis of the liver. Why? Not because \ye want to stigmatize
people who drink or smoke. But for a very practical reason: These be¬
haviors being voluntary and preventable, it makes a lot more sense to
spend the scarce intellectual, scientific and financial resources of the
country trying to give people immunity from diseases that they cannot
otherwise protect themselves against.
The classic case is polio. When FDR contracted it in 1921, we had not
a clue how people got it. By the '50s, frightened parents kept their chil¬
dren away from swimming pools and movie theaters and even crowds.
They lived in terror not knowing what they might be doing that was
contributing to their kids' chances of getting polio.
With no obvious behavioral cause, polio was the classic case of a dis¬
ease crying out for a vaccine. Meningitis, cervical cancer and multiple
sclerosis occupy a similar position today. But AIDS?
Moreover, Clinton is calling for a huge technological innovation
(which many in the field doubt is a reasonable prospect anyway) to pre-
\ ent the spread of AIDS. \et at the same tune, the traditional way of
controlling the spread of communicable diseases has been largely
abandoned in the case of AIDS. And uniquely in the case of AIDS.
We fight just about every epidemic—tuberculosis, syphilis, gonor¬
rhea—by identifying carriers and warning their contacts. The usual epi¬
demiological tracing has not been done for AIDS. Gay activists and civil
libertarians have vociferously opposed it. And the politicians have
caved.
io The story of this travesty—"the effective suspension of traditional
public health procedures for AIDS"—is laid out in damning detail by
Chandler Burr in the current Atlantic Monthly ("The AIDS Exception:
Privacy vs. Public Health").
"AIDS has been so thoroughly exempted from traditional public
health approaches," writes Burr, "that civil libertarians have defeated in
court attempts by health authorities to notify the spouses of people who
have died of AIDS that their husbands or wives were HIV-infected."
In 1985, in fact, gay activists brought suit to prevent the use of the
first test for HIV, unless assured the tests would not be used for wide¬
spread screening of gays. Even today they oppose mandatory HIV
screening for pregnant women, even though we know that early treat¬
ment of the mothers would reduce by 50 to 75 percent the number of
kids who are born with HIV.
"Traditional public health is absolutely effective at controlling infec¬
tious disease," says Dr. Lee Reichman, who works with tuberculosis
 Forms of Argument 499

and AIDS patients. "It should have been applied to AIDS from the start,
and it wasn't. Long before there was AIDS, there were other sexually
transmitted diseases, and you had partner notification and testing and
reporting. This was routine public health at its finest and this is the way
STDs were controlled."
Marcia Angell, executive editor of the New England Journal of Medi¬
cine, is blunter than most: "I have no doubt... that if, for example, we
screened all expectant mothers, we could prevent AIDS in many cases.
And if we traced partners, we would prevent AIDS in many cases. And
if we routinely tested in hospitals, we would prevent AIDS in many
cases."
15 And if we had a president with guts, he would be demanding these
elementary measures to save people from getting AIDS today—instead
of waving a wand and telling scientists to produce for him a magic vac¬
cine 10 years from now.

Forms of Argument
Arguments occur in many forms, but two major thinking methods provide the
foundations for most arguments and also influence the forms in which argu¬
ments are organized. These methods are (1) deduction and (2) induction. They
can be seen as (1) moving from general principles to specific applications and
(2) moving from specific instances to general conclusions. Deduction and in¬
duction are seldom used in "pure" or textbook ways in real-life arguments. In¬
stead, they often are compressed or combined, so seeing and analyzing their
uses can sometimes be difficult. In fact, some teachers and students feel that
studying them separately is more an exercise than a practical activity.
However, as a critical thinker, a writer of arguments, and an analyst of ar¬
guments, you need to understand the principles of deduction and induction.
This chapter presents them so that you can see how they function and inter¬
relate. Then you should be able to see how you and others use them, both
consciously and unconsciously, in trying to convince audiences.

Deductive Reasoning
The deductive argument is the one most commonly associated with the study
of logic. Though it has a variety of valid forms, they share one characteristic:
if you accept the supporting reasons (also called premises) as true, you must
necessarily accept the conclusion as true.

Deductive Argument: an argument form in which one reasons

from premises that are known or assumed to be true to a
conclusion that follows necessarily from these premises.
500 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

For example, consider the following famous deductive argument:

Reason/Premise: All persons are mortal.

Reason/Premise: Socrates is a person.
Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
y

In this example of deductive thinking, accepting the premises of the ar¬

gument as true means that the conclusion necessarily follows; it cannot be
false. Many deductive arguments, like the one just given, are structured as
syllogisms, an argument form that consists of two supporting premises and
a conclusion. There are also, however, a large number of invalid deductive
forms, one of which is illustrated in the following defective syllogism:

Reason/Premise: All persons are mortal.

Reason/Premise: Socrates is a person.
Conclusion: Therefore all persons are Socrates.

This example is deliberately absurd, but people do shift terms in such ways
and think such things as that all tall people should play basketball, just be¬
cause basketball players are usually tall. Despite the variety of invalid de¬
ductive structures, once you become aware of the concept of validity, you
should be able to detect invalidity. In the next several pages, we will briefly
examine some common valid deductive forms.
One is the application of a general rule. Whenever we reason with the
form illustrated by the valid Socrates syllogism, we are using the following
argument structure:

Premise: All A (people) are B (mortal).

Premise: S is an A (Socrates is a person).
Conclusion: Therefore, S is B (Socrates is mortal).

This basic argument form is valid no matter what terms are included. For ex¬
ample:

Premise: All politicians are untrustworthy.

Premise: Bill White is a politician.
Conclusion: Therefore, Bill White is untrustworthy.

Notice again that, with any valid deductive form, if we assume that the
premises are true, we must accept the conclusion. Of course, in this case there
is considerable or complete doubt that the first premise is true.
Although we are not always aware of it, we use this basic type of rea¬
soning whenever we apply a general rule In the form "All A is B." For in¬
stance:
 Forms of Argument 501

Premise: All children eight years old should be in bed by 9:30 P.M.
Premise: You are an eight-year-old child.
Conclusion: Therefore, you should be in bed by 9:30 P.M.

Often we present this kind of reasoning in an abbreviated form called an en-

thymeme, which assumes the first premise: You should be in bed by 9:30 because
you're an eight-year-old child; Bill White is a politician, so he's untrustworthy.
Describe an example from your own experience in which you use this de¬
ductive form, both as a syllogism and as an enthymeme.

Other Deductive Forms

Deductive arguments, or syllogisms and enthymemes, come in many other
forms, most of which have names given by logicians. At some time while you
are in college, you should consider taking a course in critical thinking or logic
and learn about as many kinds of reasoning as you can. This chapter provides
only an introduction.

Affirming the antecedent

Premise: If I have prepared thoroughly for the final exam, I will do well.
Premise: I prepared thoroughly for the exam.
Conclusion: Therefore, I will do well on the exam.

When we reason like this, we are using the following argument structure:

Premise: If A (I have prepared thoroughly), then B (I will do well).

Premise: A (I have prepared thoroughly).
Conclusion: Therefore, B (I will do well).

Like all valid deductive forms, this form is valid no matter what specific
terms are included. For example:

Premise: If the Democrats register 20 million new voters, they will win the
presidential election.
Premise: The Democrats registered more than 20 million new voters.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Democrats will win the presidential election.

As with other valid argument forms, the conclusion will be true if the reasons
are true. Although the second premise in this argument expresses informa¬
tion that can be verified, the first premise would be more difficult to establish.

Denying the consequent

Premise: If Michael were a really good friend, he would lend me his car for
the weekend.
Premise: Michael refuses to lend me his car for the weekend.
Conclusion: Therefore, Michael is not a really good friend.
502 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

When we reason in this fashion, we are using the following argument struc¬
ture:

Premise: If A (Michael is a really good friend), then B (He will lend me his
car).
Premise: Not B (He won't lend me his car).
Conclusion: Therefore, not A (He's not a really good friend).

Again, like other valid reasoning forms, this form is valid no matter what
subject is being considered. As always, the truth of the premises must be eval¬
uated.

Disjunctive syllogism
Premise: Either I left my wallet on my dresser or I have lost it.
Premise: The wallet is not on my dresser.
Conclusion: Therefore, I must have lost it.

When we reason in this way, we are using the following argument structure:

Premise: Either A (I left my wallet on my dresser) or B (I have lost it).

Premise: Not A (I didn't leave it on my dresser).
Conclusion: Therefore, B (I have lost it).

This valid reasoning form can be applied to any number of situations and still
yield valid results. For example:

Premise: Either your stomach trouble is caused by what you are eating or it
is caused by nervous tension.
Premise: \ou can tell me that you have been taking special care with your
diet. J
Conclusion: Therefore, your stomach trouble is caused by nervous tension.

To determine the accuracy of the conclusion, we must determine the accuracy

of the premises. If they are true, the conclusion must be true.

All the foregoing basic argument forms are found not only in informal
everyday conversations but also at more formal levels of thinking. They ap¬
pear in academic disciplines, in scientific inquiry, in debates on social issues,
and so on. Many other argument forms—both deductive and inductive—also
constitute human reasoning. By sharpening your understanding of these
ways of thinking, you will be better able to make sense of the world by con¬
structing and evaluating effective arguments.
 Forms of Argument 503

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 12.4

Evaluating Deductive Arguments

Analyze the followins arguments by completing these steps.
1. Summarize the reasons and conclusions given.
2. Identify which, if any, deductive argument forms are used.
3. Evaluate the truth of the reasons that support the conclusion.

The state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual,
since the whole is of necessity prior to the part. —Aristotle, Politics

The extreme vulnerability of a complex industrial society to intelligent,

targeted terrorism by a very small number of people may prove the fa¬
tal challenge to which Western states have no adequate response. Coun¬
terforce alone will never suffice. The real challenge of the true terrorist
is to the basic values of a society. If there is no commitment to shared
values in Western society—and if none are imparted in our amoral in¬
stitutions of higher learning—no increase in police and burglar alarms
will suffice to preserve our society from the specter that haunts us—not
a bomb from above but a gun from within. —James Billington, "The
Gun Within"

To fully believe in something, to truly understand something, one must

be intimately acquainted with its opposite. One should not adopt a
creed by default, because no alternative is known. Education should
prepare students for the "real world" not be segregating them from evil
but by urging full confrontation to test and modify the validity of the
good. —Robert Baron, "In Defense of Teaching Racism, Sexism,
and Fascism"

The inescapable conclusion is that society secretly wants crime, needs

crime, and gains definite satisfactions from the present mishandling of
it! We condemn crime; we punish offenders for it; but we need it. The
crime and punishment ritual is a part of our lives. We need crimes to
wonder at, to enjoy vicariously, to discuss and speculate about, and to
publicly deplore. We need criminals to identify ourselves with, to envy
secretly, and to punish stoutly. They do for us the forbidden, illegal
things we wish to do and, like scapegoats of old, they bear the burdens
of our displaced guilt and punishment—"the iniquities of us all."
—Karl Menninger, "The Crime of Punishment"
504 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

Inductive Reasoning
The preceding section has focused on deductive reasoning, an argument form
in which one reasons from premises that are known or assumed to be true to
a conclusion that follows necessarily from the premises. This section intro¬
duces inductive reasoning, an argument form in which one reasons from
premises or instances that are known or assumed to be true to a conclusion
that is supported by the premises but does not follow necessarily from them.

Inductive Reasoning: an argument form in which one reasons

from premises, instances, or data that are known or assumed
to be true to a conclusion that is supported by the premises
but does not follow necessarily from them.

When you reason inductively, your premises, instances, or data provide

evidence that makes it more or less probable (but not certain) that the con¬
clusion is true. The following statements are examples of conclusions reached
through inductive reasoning. As you read them, think about how the data
might have been obtained and what arguments could be based on each state¬
ment.

1. A recent Gallup poll reported that 74 percent of the American public be¬
lieves that abortion should remain legal.
2. On the average, a person with a college degree will earn over $830,000
more in his or her lifetime than a person with just a high school diploma.
3. The outbreak of food poisoning at the end-of-year school party was prob¬
ably caused by the squid salad.
4. The devastating disease AIDS is caused by a particularly complex virus
that may not be curable.
5. The solar system is probably the result of an enormous explosion—a “big
bang"—that occurred billions of years ago.

Each of the first two statements is an example of inductive reasoning

known as empirical generalization, a general statement about an entire
group made on the basis of observing some members of the group. The final
three statements are examples of causal reasoning, a form of inductive rea¬
soning in which it is claimed that an event (or events) is the result of the oc¬
currence of another event (or events).

Causal Reasoning and the Scientific Method

You were introduced to causal reasoning in Chapter 8 and also to the fallacies
that can result if causes are not analyzed logically. Review pages 287-294 as
a reminder of the characteristics of this pattern of induction.
 Empirical Generalization 505

Causal reasoning is the backbone of the natural and the social sciences. It
is central to the scientific method, which works on the assumption that the
world is constructed in a complex web of causal relationships that can be
discovered through systematic investigation. You work with the scientific
method in your science courses.

Empirical Generalization
An important tool used by both natural and social scientists is empirical gen¬
eralization. Have you ever wondered how the major television and radio net¬
works can accurately predict election results hours before the polls close?
These predictions are made possible by the power of empirical general¬
ization, which is defined as reasoning from a limited sample to a general
conclusion based on this sample. Arguments are often based on such gener¬
alizations.

Empirical Generalization: a form of inductive reasoning in

which a general statement is made about an entire group (the
"target population") based on observing some members of
the group (the "sample population").

Network election predictions, as well as public opinion polls that occur

throughout a political campaign, are based on interviews with a select num¬
ber of people. Ideally, pollsters would interview everyone in the target pop¬
ulation (in this case, voters), but this, of course, is hardly practical. Instead,
they select a relatively small group of individuals from the target population,
known as a sample, who they have determined will adequately represent the
group as a whole. Pollsters believe that they can then generalize the opinions
of this smaller group to the target population. And the results are accurate,
with a few notable exceptions (such as in the 1948 presidential election, when
New York Governor Thomas Dewey went to bed believing he had been
elected president and woke up a loser to Harry Truman).
There are three key criteria for evaluating inductive arguments:

■ Is the sample known?

■ Is the sample sufficient?
■ Is the sample representative?

Is the Sample Known?

An inductive argument is only as strong as the sample on which it is based.
For example, sample populations described in vague and unclear terms—
such as "highly placed sources" or "many young people interviewed"—
506 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

provide a treacherously weak foundation for generalizing to larger popula¬

tions. In order for an inductive argument to be persuasive, the sample popu¬
lation should be explicitly known and clearly identified. Natural and social
scientists take great care in selecting the members in the sample groups. In¬
formation on members of the sample groups is available to outside investi¬
gators who may wish to evaluate and verify the results.

Is the Sample Sufficient?

The second criterion for evaluating inductive reasoning is to consider the size
of the sample. It should be large enough to give an accurate sense of the
group as a whole. In the polling example discussed earlier, we would be con¬
cerned if only a few registered voters were interviewed and the results of
these interviews were generalized to a much larger population. Overall, the
larger the sample, the more reliable the inductive conclusions. Natural and
social scientists have developed precise guidelines for determining the size of
the sample needed to achieve reliable results. For example, poll results are of¬
ten accompanied by a qualification such as "These results are subject to an er¬
ror factor of ± 3 percentage points." This means that if the sample reveals that
47 percent of those interviewed prefer candidate X, we can reliably state that
44 to 50 percent of the target population prefer candidate X. Because a sam¬
ple is usually a small portion of the target population, we can rarely state that
the two match each other exactly—there must always be some room for vari¬
ation. The exceptions to this are situations in which the target population is
completely homogeneous. For instance, tasting one cookie from a bag of
cookies is usually enough to tell us whether or not the entire bag is stale.

Is the Sample Representative?

The third crucial element in effective inductive reasoning is the representa¬
tiveness of the sample. If we are to generalize with confidence from the sam¬
ple to the target population, we have to be sure the sample is similar in all
relevant aspects to the larger group from which it is drawn. For instance, in
the polling example, the sample population should reflect the same percent¬
age of men and women, of Democrats and Republicans, of young and old,
and so on, as the target population. It is obvious that many characteristics,7
such as hair color, favorite food, and shoe size are not relevant to the com¬
parison. The better the sample reflects the target population in terms of rele¬
vant qualities, however, the better the accuracy of the generalizations. On the
other hand, when the sample is not representative of the target population—
for example, if the election pollsters interviewed only females between the
ages of thirty and thirty-five-the sample is termed biased, and any general¬
izations about the target population will be highly suspect.
How do we ensure that the sample is representative of the target popu¬
lation? One important device is random selection, a selection strategy in which
 Empirical Generalization 507

every member of the target population has an equal chance of being included
in the sample. For example, the various techniques used to select winning lot¬
tery tickets are supposed to be random—each ticket is supposed to have an
equal chance of winning. In complex cases of inductive reasoning—such as
polling—random selection is often combined with the confirmation that all
the important categories in the population are adequately represented. For
example, an election pollster would want to be certain that all significant ge¬
ographical areas are included, and then would randomly select individuals
from within those areas to compose the sample.
Understanding the principles of empirical generalization is of crucial im¬
portance to effective thinking because we are continually challenged to eval¬
uate this form of inductive thinking in our lives. In addition, if we are writing
about political or social issues, we often use the results of inductive investi¬
gations.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 12.5

Analyzing Inductive Reasoning

Review the followins examples of inductive reasoning. Select two and evalu¬
ate the quality of the thinking by answering the following questions.

1. Is the sample known?

2. Is the sample sufficient?
3. Is the sample representative?
4. Do you believe that the conclusions are likely to be accurate? Why or why
not?
5. What are some arguments that might be based on examples that you chose?

In a study of a possible relationship between pornography and antiso¬

cial behavior, questionnaires went out to 7,500 psychiatrists and psycho¬
analysts whose listing in the directory of the American Psychological
Association indicated clinical experience. Over 3,400 of these profession¬
als responded. The result: 7.4 percent of the psychiatrists and psycholo¬
gists had cases in which they were convinced that pornography was a
causal factor in antisocial behavior; an additional 9.4 percent were suspi¬
cious; 3.2 percent did not commit themselves; and 80 percent said they
had no cases in which a causal connection was suspected.

A survey by the Sleep Disorder Clinic of the VA hospital in La Jolla, Cali¬

fornia (involving more than one million people), revealed that people
who sleep more than ten hours a night have a death rate 80 percent
higher than those who sleep only seven or eight hours. Men who sleep
 508 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

less than four hours a night have a death rate 180 percent higher, and
women with less (than four hours) sleep have a rate 40 percent higher.
This might be taken as indicating that too much and too little sleep cause
death.

In a recent survey, twice as many doctors interviewed stated that if they

were stranded on a desert island, they would prefer X Aspirin to Extra
Strength Y.

Being a general practitioner in a rural area has tremendous drawbacks—

being on virtul 24-hour call 365 days a year; patients without financial
means or insurance; low fees in the first place; inadequate facilities and
assistance. Nevertheless, America/s small-town G.P.s seem fairly content
with their lot. According to a survey taken by Country Doctor, fully 50
percent wrote back that they "basically like being a rural G.P." Only 1 in
15 regretted that he or she had not specialized. Only 2 out of 20 rural
geneial practitioners would trade places with their urban counterparts,
given the chance. And only 1 in 30 would "choose some other line of
work altogether."

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 12.6

Designing a Polling Project
Select an issue that you would like to poll a sroup of people about—a group
such as the population of your school or your neighborhood. Describe in spe¬
cific terms how you would go about constructing a sample both large enough
and representative enough for you to generalize the results to the target pop¬
ulation accurately. Then decide how you might use this information in a paper
in which you present an argument. Which college sources might ask for such re¬
search? In what community activities could this kind of information gathering
be valuable? Write your answers in your journal.

Fallacies: Forms of False Reasoning

Certain forms of reasoning are not logical. These types of pseudoreasoning
(false reasoning) are often termed fallacies: arguments that are not sound be¬
cause of various errors in reasoning. Fallacious reasoning is sometimes used
to influence others. It seeks to persuade not on the basis of sound arguments
and critical thinking, but on the basis of emotional and illogical factors.
Sometimes fallacious reasoning is used inadvertently. However, it is always
 Fallacies: Forms of False Reasoning 509

dangerous, so it is important to recognize it as well as to avoid its use. De¬

tecting fallacious reasoning can be a significant factor in evaluating sources
of beliefs, the concept discussed in Chapter 10.

Fallacies: unsound arguments that are often persuasive because

they can appear to be logical, because they usually appeal to
our emotions and prejudices, and because they can support
conclusions that we want to believe are accurate.

In Chapter 9, Forming Concepts, we explored the way that we form con¬

cepts through the interactive process of generalizing (identifying the common
qualities that define the boundaries of the concept) and interpreting (identify¬
ing examples of the concept). This generalizing and interpreting process is
similar to the process involved in constructing empirical generalizations, as
we seek to reach a general conclusion based on a limited number of examples
and then apply this conclusion to other examples. Although generalizing and
interpreting are useful in forming concepts, they also can give rise to falla¬
cious ways of thinking, including the following:

■ Hasty generalization
■ Sweeping generalization
■ False dilemma

Hasty Generalization
Consider the following examples of reasoning. Do you think the arguments
are sound? Why or why not?

■ My boyfriends have never shown any real concern for my feelings. My

conclusion is that men are insensitive, selfish, and emotionally superfi¬
cial.
■ My mother always gets upset over insignificant things. This leads me to
believe that women are very emotional.

In both of these cases, a general conclusion has been reached that is based on
a very small sample. As a result, the reasons provide very weak support for
the conclusions that are being developed. It just does not make good sense to
generalize from a few individuals to all men or all women. The conclusion is
hasty because the sample is not large enough or not representative enough to
provide adequate justification for the generalization.
510 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

Sweeping Generalization
Whereas the fallacy of hasty generalization deals with errors in the process of
generalizing, the fallacy of sweeping generalization focuses on difficulties in the
process of interpreting. Consider the following examples of reasoning. Do
you consider the arguments sound? Why or why not?

■ Vigorous exercise contributes to overall good health. Therefore, vigor¬

ous exercise should be practiced by recent heart attack victims, people
who are out of shape, and women in the last month of pregnancy.
■ People should be allowed to make their own decisions, providing that
their actions do not harm other people. Therefore, people who are try-
ing to commit suicide should be left alone to do what they want.

In both of these cases, generalizations that are true in most cases have been
deliberately applied to instances that are clearly intended to be exceptions to
the generalizations because of special features that the exceptions possess. Of
course, the use of a sweeping generalization stimulates us to clarify the gen¬
eralization, rephrasing it to exclude instances, like those given here, that have
special features. For example, the first generalization could be reformulated
as "Vigorous exercise contributes to overall good health, except for recent
heart attack victims, people out of shape, and women who are about to give
birth. Sweeping generalizations become dangerous when they are accepted
without critical analysis and reformulation.
Examine the following examples of sweeping generalizations, and in
each case (a) explain why it is a sweeping generalization, and (b) reformulate
the statement to make it a legitimate generalization.

1. A college education stimulates you to develop as a person and prepares

you for many professions. Therefore, all persons should attend college, no
matter what career they are interested in.
2. Drugs such as heroin and morphine are addictive and therefore qualify as
dangerous drugs. This means that they should never be used, even as
painkillers in medical situations.
3. Once criminals have served time for the crimes they have committed, they
have paid their debt to society and should be permitted to work at any job
they choose. J

False Dilemma
The fallacy of the false dilemma—,also known as the either/or fallacy or the black-
or-white fallacy—occurs when one is being asked to choose between two ex¬
treme alternatives without being able to consider additional options. For
example, we may say, "You're either for me or against me," meaning that a
choice has to be made between these alternatives. Sometimes giving people
only two choices on an issue makes sense ("If you decide to swim the English
Channel, you'll either make it or you won't"). At other times, however, viewing
 Fallacies: Forms of False Reasoning 511

situations in such extreme terms may be a serious oversimplification—for it

would mean viewing a complicated situation in terms that are too simple.
The following statements are examples of false dilemmas. After analyz¬
ing the fallacy in each case, suggest different alternatives than those being
presented. Example: "Everyone in Germany is a National Socialist—the few
outside the party are either lunatics or idiots." (Adolf Hitler, quoted by the
New York Times, April 5,1938)
Analysis: Hitler was saying that Germans who were not Nazis were lunatics
or idiots. By limiting the population to these groups. Hitler was simply ig¬
noring all the people who did not qualify as Nazis, lunatics, or idiots.

1. "America—love it or leave it!"

2. "She loves me; she loves me not."
3. "Live free or die."
4. "If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem."
5. "If you know about BMW, you either own one or you want to."

Fallacies of Relevance
Many fallacious arguments appeal for support to factors that have little or
nothing to do with the argument being offered. In these cases, false appeals
substitute for sound reasoning and a critical examination of the issues. Such
appeals, known as fallacies of relevance, include the following kinds of falla¬
cious thinking:

■ Appeal to authority
■ Appeal to pity
■ Appeal to fear
■ Appeal to ignorance
■ Appeal to personal attack

Appeal to Authority
In Chapters 2 and 10, we explored the ways in which we sometimes use var¬
ious authorities to establish our beliefs or prove our points. At that time, we
noted that to serve as a basis for beliefs, authorities must have legitimate ex¬
pertise in the area in which they are advising—like an experienced mechanic
diagnosing a problem with your car. However, people occasionally appeal to
authorities who are not qualified to give an expert opinion. Consider the rea¬
soning in the following advertisements. Do you think the arguments are
sound? Why or why not?
■ Hi. You've probably seen me out on the football field. After a hard day's
work crushing halfbacks and sacking quarterbacks, I like to settle down
with a cold, smooth Maltz beer.
 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

■ SONY. Ask anyone.

■ Over 11 million women will read this ad. Only 16 will own the coat.

Each of these arguments is intended to persuade us of the value of a product

through the appeal to various authorities. In the first case, the authority is a
well-known sports figure; in the second, the authority is large numbers of
people; and in the third, the authority is a select few, appealing to our desire
to be exclusive ( snob appeal"). Unfortunately, none of these authorities of¬
fers legitimate expertise about the product. Football players are not beer ex¬
perts, large numbers of people are often misled; and exclusive groups of
people are frequently mistaken in their beliefs. To evaluate authorities prop¬
erly, we have to ask:

■ What are the professional credentials on which the authorities' exper¬

tise is based?
■ Is their expertise in the area they are commenting on?

Appeal to Pity
Consider the reasoning in the following arguments. Do you think the argu¬
ments are sound? WTiy or why not?

■ I know that I haven't completed my term paper, but I really think that I
should be excused. This has been a very difficult semester for me. I
caught every kind of flu that came around. In addition, my brother has
a drinking problem, and this has been very upsetting to me. Also, my
dog died.

■ I admit that my client embezzled money from the company. Your

Honor. However, I would like to bring several facts to your attention.
He is a family man with a wonderful wife and two terrific children. He
is an important member of the community. He is active in the church,
coaches a Little League baseball team, and has worked very hard to be
a good person who cares about people. I think that you should take
these things into consideration in handing down your sentence.

In each of these arguments, the reasons offered to support the conclu¬

sions may indeed be true. Yet they are not relevant to the conclusion. Instead
of providing evidence that supports the conclusion, the reasons are designed
to make us feel sorry for the person involved and therefore to agree with the
conclusion out of sympathy. Although these appeals are often effective, the
arguments are not sound. The probability of a conclusion can be established
only by reasons that support and are relevant to the conclusion.
 Fallacies: Forms of False Reasoning 513

Appeal to Fear
Consider the reasoning in the following arguments. Do you consider the ar¬
guments sound? Why or why not?

■ I'm afraid I don't think you deserve a raise. After all, there are many
people who would be happy to have your job at the salary you are cur¬
rently receiving. I would be happy to interview some of these people if
you really think that you are underpaid.
■ If you continue to disagree with my interpretation of The Catcher in the
Rye, I'm afraid you won't get a very good grade on your paper.

In both of these arguments, the conclusions being suggested are sup¬

ported by an appeal to fear, not by reasons that provide evidence for the con¬
clusions. In the first case, the threat is that if you do not forgo your salary
demands, your job may be in jeopardy. In the second case, the threat is that if
you do not agree with the teacher's interpretation, you will receive a low
grade. In neither instance are the real issues—Is a salary increase deserved?
Is the student's interpretation legitimate?—being discussed. People who ap¬
peal to fear to support their conclusions are interested only in prevailing, re¬
gardless of which position might be more justified.

Appeal to Ignorance
Consider the reasoning in the following arguments. Do you find the argu¬
ments sound? Why or why not?

■ You say that you don't believe in God. But can you prove that an om¬
nipotent spirit doesn't exist? If not, then you have to accept the conclu¬
sion that it does in fact exist.
■ Greco Tires are the best. No others have been proved better.

When this argument form is used, the person offering the conclusion is
asking his or her opponent to disprove the conclusion. If the opponent is un¬
able to do so, the conclusion is asserted to be true. This argument form is not
valid because it is the job of the person proposing the argument to prove the
conclusion. The fact that an opponent cannot disprove the conclusion offers
no evidence that the conclusion is justified.

Appeal to Personal Attack

Consider the reasoning in the following arguments. Do you think the argu¬
ments are valid? Why or why not?
■ Senator Smith's opinion about a tax cut is wrong. It's impossible to be¬
lieve anything he says since he left his wife for that model.
■ How can you have an intelligent opinion about abortion? You're not a
woman, so this is a decision that you'll never have to make.
514 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

This argument form has been one of the fallacies most frequently used
through the ages. Its effectiveness results from ignoring the issues of the ar¬
gument and focusing instead on the personal qualities of the person offering
the argument. Trying to discredit the other person is an effort to discredit the
argument—no matter what reasons are offered. This fallacy is also referred to
as the ad hominem argument, which means "to the man" rather than to the is¬
sue, and as poisoning the well, as we are trying to ensure that any water drawn
from the opponent's well will be treated as undrinkable.
Tire effort to discredit can take two forms, as illustrated in the preceding
examples. The fallacy can be abusive in the sense of directly attacking the
credibility of an opponent. In addition, the fallacy can be circumstantial in the
sense of claiming that a person's circumstances, not character, render his or
her opinion so biased or uninformed that it cannot be treated seriously (as in
the second example). Other examples of the circumstantial form of the fallacy
would include disregarding the views on nuclear-plant safety given by an
owner of a nuclear plant.

THINKING<-> WRITING ACTIVITY 12.7

Analyzes Fallacies
1. Find in advertisements, political statements, or other arguments that you
have encountered, examples of two or three false appeals. Write a brief ex¬
planation of why you think the appeal is not warranted. Look for the follow¬
ing fallacies:
■ Appeal to authority
■ Appeal to pity
■ Appeal to fear
■ Appeal to ignorance
■ Appeal to personal attack

2. Write a few sentences explaining how you can avoid fallacies in your own
writing.

THINKING^ WRITING ACTIVITY 12.8

Analyzing well-known arguments to see how they use deduction, induction
evidence (logos), ethos, pathos, appeals—and perhaps fallacious reasoning—
is a challenging activity and one that can help you with your own arguments
Read The Declaration of Independence, and the “Declaration of Sentiments and
Resolutions" in this chapter, and “I Have a Dream" (pages 170-173 in Chapter
5). Then write answers to the following questions in your journal.
 Fallacies: Forms of False Reasoning 515

1. What is the thesis of each of these arguments? Where is it stated in each?

2. How does The Declaration of Independence use deduction and induction?
Identify the premises and the conclusion in the second paragraph. Com¬
ment on the instances that are listed beginning in the third paragraph. Com¬
ment on the effectiveness of this deliberate use of these basic reasoning
methods.
3. How does "I Have a Dream" use induction?
4. In your library or on the Internet, locate a copy of King’s "Letter from Birm¬
ingham Jail." What differences in approach do you see between it and “I
Have a Dream"? What about the tone or ethos?
5. These political arguments address major human questions. What in them
could be applicable to arguments that you might write about academic or
business issues? What might not be applicable?

The Declaration of Independence

In Congress, July 4,1776
The unanimous declaration of the thirteen
United States of America
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, lay¬
ing its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happi¬
ness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly
all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses
and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for
their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these
Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter
their former systems of government. The history of the present King of
Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all
Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over

these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and
pressing importance, unless suspended in their: operation till his assent
should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected
to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and for¬
midable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncom¬
fortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the
sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing
with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause oth¬
ers to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihila¬
tion, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State
remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from
without and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for
that purpose obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners; refus¬
ing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the
conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his as¬
sent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of
their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of
officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without
the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to
the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to
their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any mur¬
ders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
 Fallacies: Forms of False Reasoning 517

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring
Province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging
its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable laws,
and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves in¬
vested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his pro¬
tection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to
complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun
with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized na¬
tion.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas
to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their
friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeav¬
oured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian
savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruc¬
tion of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in
the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by
every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We
have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them
of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have con¬
jured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these
usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and
correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of
consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which de¬
nounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind,
enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in
General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the au¬
thority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and
Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free
and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the
State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as
Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy war, con¬
clude peace, contract alliances, establish comnjerce, and to do all other
acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And for the
support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Di¬
vine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our for¬
tunes, and our sacred honor.

from Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Seneca Falls

by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one per¬
son of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a po¬
sition different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to
which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
that impel them to such a course.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain in¬
alienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, de¬
riving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever
any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist
upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed,
will dictate that governments long established should not be changed
for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath
shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are suffer¬
able, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
were accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them
under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such govern¬
ment, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has
been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and
such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal
station to which they are entitled.
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpa¬
tions on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the es¬
tablishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be
submitted to a candid world.
 Fallacies: Forms of False Reasoning 519

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the

elective franchise.
He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which
she had no voice.
He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most igno¬
rant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.
Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective fran¬
chise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legisla¬
tion, he has oppressed her on all sides.
He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit
many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of
her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise
obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her
master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to
administer chastisement.
He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper
causes, and in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the chil¬
dren shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of
women—the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the su¬
premacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.
After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single, and
the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which
recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.
He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and
from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remu¬
neration. He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction
which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology,
medicine, or law, she is not known.
He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education,
all colleges being closed against her.
He allows her in Church, as well as State, but a subordinate position,
claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and,
with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the
Church.
He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a dif¬
ferent code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquen¬
cies which exclude women from society are not only tolerated, but
deemed of little account in man.
He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his
right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her con¬
science and to her God.
He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confi¬
dence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her
willing to lead a dependent and abject life.
520 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people

of this country, their social and religious degradation—in view of the
unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves
aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred
rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights
and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.
20 I11 entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small
amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall
use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We
shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and National leg¬
islatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf.
We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions
embracing every part of the country.

Resolutions

Whereas, The great precept of nature is conceded to be, that "man shall
pursue his own true and substantial happiness." Blackstone in his Com¬
mentaries remarks, that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind,
and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any
other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries and at all times; no
human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as
are valid, derive all their force and all their validity, and all their au¬
thority, mediately and immediately, from this original; therefore.
Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and
substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of na¬
ture and of no validity, for this is "superior in obligation to any other."
Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a
station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a
position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of na¬
ture, and therefore of no force or authority.
Resolved, That woman is man's equal—was intended to be so by the
Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be
recognized as such.
Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in
regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer pub¬
lish their degradation by declaring themselves satisfied with their pres¬
ent position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the
rights they want.
Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellec¬
tual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority for it is pre¬
eminently his duty to encourage her to speak and teach, as she has an
opportunity, in all religious assemblies.
Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of
behavior that is required of woman in the social state, should also be
 Deductive and Inductive Reasoning in Writing 521

required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with

equal severity on both man and woman.
Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is
so often brought against woman when she addresses a public audience,
comes with a very ill-grace from those who encourage, by their atten¬
dance, her appearance on the stage, in the concert, or in feats of the cir¬
cus.
Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circum¬
scribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the
Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move
in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her.
Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to
themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.
Resolved, That the equality of human rights results necessarily from
the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities.
Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same
capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exer¬
cise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man,
to promote every righteous cause by every righteous means; and espe¬
cially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-
evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them,
both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any in¬
strumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be
held; and this being a self-evident truth growing out of the divinely im¬
planted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to
it, whether modem or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be
regarded as a self-evident falsehood, and at war with mankind.
[At the last session Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following
resolution:]
Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the
zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow
of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to women an equal
participation with men in the various trades, professions and com¬
merce.

Deductive and Inductive Reasoning in Writing

As pointed out earlier in this chapter, writers and speakers seldom use de¬
ductive or inductive reasoning solely or purely. In their arguments, conclu¬
sions reached by induction become premises for deductions; statements that
are premises are given but not demonstrated, as in the opening sentences of
The Declaration of Independence. Deductively developed paragraphs interact
with inductively developed ones, as in Gould's "Evolution as Fact and
522 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

Theory" (see the sections "Creationism Is Not Science" and "The Fact of Evo¬
lution").
However, deduction is used obviously when a definition or principle is
established by the writer, and the point of the paper or paragraph is to claim
that the item being discussed fits the definition or demonstrates the principle.
If the readers agree with the definition and also agree that the item fits it, the
claim is proved for whatever purpose the writer has. Political science, litera¬
ture, philosophy, theology, psychology, and law are among the many fields
that employ deductive arguments in this way.
Inductive reasoning is reflected in two ways in writing. One is structural.
When a writer chooses to present instances of evidence first, leading readers
to the claim given as a conclusion, the paragraph or paper is organized in¬
ductively. Composition instructors tend to steer students away from using
this technique to structure entire papers, since great skill is needed to keep
readers with the argument. The sections "Organizing Ideas" and "Revising"
in the Writing Projects in this book have asked you to think carefully about
where you state your thesis or claim, for this reason. It is usually more effec¬
tive to use deductively based structure.
A reflection of inductive reasoning that is used often in writing occurs
when the writer makes a claim in a topic sentence or thesis statement, then
simply exemplifies it. The writer is asking the readers to re-enact the induc¬
tive process that led the writer to make the claim. Notice how the list of evils
alleged to have been committed by the British government functions this way
in The Declaration of Independence. Notice how regularly you use this tech¬
nique, and how often much of what you read uses it, too.
In addition, deduction often appears in the abbreviated form of the en-
thymeme (see page 501), and induction through the small sample of the ex¬
ample, the inference, and the anecdote. This practice is neither wrong nor
fallacious. Writers cannot take the time or the space to state all the premises
of every deduction or to give multiple instances to support each idea. How¬
ever, critical thinkers need to understand these reductions so that claims and
evidence can be evaluated. Deduction and induction, the basic reasoning
methods, are at work in various ways in what we write and read.

Writing Thoughtful Arguments

This chapter has emphasized the importance of basic concepts and terminol¬
ogy connected with argument because reasoned argument, leading to agree¬
ment, is the foundation of a democratic society and also is often the key to
success in personal, academic, and business activities.
Because so much college and professional writing is argumentative, this
Writing Project asks you to concentrate on the two central elements of
 Writing Thoughtful Arguments 523

Argumentative Papers: Composins informed arsumentative papers

involves researching relevant information from authoritative sources and
integrating this information into the paper in appropriate ways.

argument: establishing a clear thesis and providing sound evidence for it. In
addition, you will be particularly conscious of being logical, of avoiding fal¬
lacious statements, of considering your audience, and of presenting yourself
as a reasonable, well-informed proponent of your claims.
524 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

WRITING PROJECT

WRITING PROJECT Arguing a Position on a

Significant Issue
Write an essay in which you argue logically for a position on an issue
that you consider significant. Use several print sources, any elec¬
tronic sources that your instructor has specified, and—if possible—
an interview to support your claims. Follow directions given by your
instructor as to the number and range of sources, length of the pa¬
per, and academic format for citation of sources. Be sure to follow
exactly the model in your handbook when you complete your paper
in MLA, APA, or another currently accepted format chosen by your
instructor.
On a page separate from your paper, identify the audience to
whom you are addressing your argument and explain why that audi¬
ence will benefit from understanding your position. Also, either in
the argument or as an accompanying note, explain why this issue is
important to you, so that your classmates and your instructor, as
they help you revise your drafts, can see where your expertise and
possible biases have had their origins.

The following principles for writing responsible arguments are funda¬

mental to the Western tradition of logical structured argument. Always be
sure to follow them as well as you can.

1. Formulate the thesis statement carefully; place it purposefully. Use de¬

ductive and inductive approaches as appropriate to develop and support
the thesis.
2. Provide a context for the thesis; give reasons for its importance.
3. Provide sound evidence. Present evidence clearly and specifically.
4. Acknowledge and show understanding of other points of view. Grant va¬
lidity to any when it is justified. Refute courteously those with which you
disagree, to strengthen your argument.
5. Use the thinking /organizing patterns in Part 2. Arguments often rely on
definitions. Causes for a situation and the effects of a proposal are often vi¬
tal to an argument. Narratives and chronologies are often effective. Con¬
trast, comparisons, and analogies illuminate your points.
6. Avoid fallacious reasoning.
7. Be aware of your tone. You want to sound reasonable, thoughtful, and po¬
lite as you argue your points. '
8. Remember that the conclusion to an argument is extremely important. Re¬
state the thesis and/or end with a suggestion, a call for action, decision, or
further thought.
 Writing Thoughtful Arguments 525

This chapter has included both readings and Thinking^Writing Activ¬

ities that encouraged you to think about argument. Be sure to reread what
you wrote for those activities; you may be able to use some of it for help in
completing this Writing Project.
Begin by considering the key elements in the Thinking-^Writing
Model.

Purpose
Your primary purpose is to write an argument that will bring your intended
audience into agreement with your claim or thesis. As you work toward that
goal, you will have to think critically about something that you care about
and clarify or modify your view, which is another useful purpose.

Audience
The audience is a major concern in any argument. Two things that a success¬
ful writer understands are the characteristics and attitudes of the audience.
When you create an argument, you must have a specific audience in mind.
While pandering dishonorably to the audience by distorting evidence or by
flattery is bad rhetoric, an arguer needs to accommodate the needs and the
make-up of the audience. Some factors to consider are knowledge—an expert
audience needs less background than a less informed one; age—younger and
older people often have different points of view; roles—we all have different
roles and respond differently as they change; relationships—an audience of
peers can be approached differently than an audience of another status; the
emotional level of the issue and situation—a highly charged situation needs
a different approach from a calm one.
Your classmates, as always, will be a good audience for this assignment,
first as expert reviewers of your drafts and, if you are dealing with an issue
at your college or one pertaining to students, as an involved audience.
Finally, your instructor remains the audience who will judge how well
you have planned, drafted, and revised. As a writing teacher, your instructor
cares about a well-formulated thesis, logic, evidence, good organization, and
correctness. Keep these in mind as you revise, edit, and proofread.

Subject
Whenever you argue for a position about which you are concerned, you are
addressing an important subject. In addition, the techniques of argument
themselves constitute a subject that merits much attention because argument
has such importance in our lives.

Writer
As you work on this Writing Project, you should feel excited about the sub¬
ject, since you selected something that you consider important. Also, if you
have been using sources in other projects, you should be comfortable in¬
corporating other people's ideas into your writing and documenting it
526 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

appropriately. A new role for you may be that of the good rhetorician, the re¬
sponsible arguer; but if you use your developing critical thinking abilities,
you will manage that role well.

The Writing Process

y

The following sections will guide you through the stages of generating, plan-
ning, drafting, and revising as you work on your argument.

Generating Ideas
■ You may be involved with some issue because of your sex or ethnicity,
because of your field of study, or through some organization in which
you participate; or you may be concerned about a problem at your col¬
lege, in your community, in your country, or elsewhere in the world. If
so, you should have no difficulty deciding what to write about. Perhaps
you have so many concerns that you will have to select among them.
■ If no issue comes quickly to you, look around your campus and your
community to see what problems exist or what changes might be made.
■ Watch the news, read the local paper and national publications such as
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Time. Talk
with friends, family members, and professors about significant issues.
■ Think about questions in your fields of interest: your favorite college
subjects, sports, entertainment, food, cars, parks, houses. Some of these
questions will pertain to serious issues; some might be more light¬
hearted; many will merit a reasoned argument.
■ Freewrite about one or two of your concerns. See how many issues or
positions you come up with in five minutes.

Defining a Focus
After selecting the issue to write about, draft a thesis statement that describes
the position for which you will argue. Be sure that the statement covers your
points fully; it may be a complex sentence. Share it with classmates to profit
from their responses. Revise it on the basis of their feedback.

Organizing Ideas
Your argument should probably be set up in the traditional "no-fail" struc¬
ture. introduction, thesis, evidence, handling of other views, summing up,
conclusion/recommendation for action. However, you may be able to use
some other arrangement effectively.
Notice how your material adapts itself to various thinking patterns. Use
them firmly to clarify your points.
Select and place material from your sources carefully. Connect this mate¬
rial smoothly with your ideas by introducing and commenting on it.
 The Writing Process 527

Drafting
Begin with the part easiest to write, which for this paper might be the begin¬
ning, since you have thought so much about your thesis and its context.
However, never get stymied trying to work out a beginning. Draft other
sections in any order that works for you. You might want to draft the para¬
graphs that present your evidence, then consider inductive or deductive
methods that you should use.
Be sure to keep track of publication information for all sources. Note ab¬
breviated titles, authors, and pages in your draft. Then, when you revise, you
can cite in the required format. Be sure to use quotation marks or indenting
in your draft whenever you quote.

Revising
Ideally, at this point, you should put your draft aside for a day or two. If
deadlines won't permit you to do that, then at least take a break before you
try to revise. When you are ready to "re-see" your writing, begin by reading
it through slowly, preferably aloud. If possible, have someone whose opinion
you respect read it; ask for feedback. Then work through the hierarchy of re¬
vision concerns that follows. Remember that you have at least one and pos¬
sibly two decisions to make for each question: (1) Is improvement needed?
and (2) If improvement is needed, how, exactly, can I make my draft better?

1. Think big. Look at your draft as a whole.

■ Does it fulfill the assignment in terms of topic and length?
■ Have you stated the thesis clearly?
■ Do all parts of the draft relate to the thesis?
■ Is the organization logical?
■ Do you provide enough evidence?
■ Is your point of view consistent?
■ Is there a discernible flow between your paragraphs?
■ Have you documented information from your sources accurately?
■ Have you used quotation marks around direct quotes or set the quotes off
by indenting?
2. Think medium. Look at your draft paragraph by paragraph.
■ Will your introduction make your audience want to read on?
■ Is the introduction appropriate for the rest of the draft?
■ Is your focus stated clearly if you are working with a "visible" structure?
■ If you are working with an "invisible" structure, is your focus clearly im¬
plied?
■ Are topic sentences used effectively?
■ Does each body paragraph develop a different idea?
■ Should any paragraphs be combined or eliminated?
■ Is your conclusion effective?
 528 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

3. Think small. Look at your draft sentence by sentence.

■ Are any sentences difficult to understand?
■ Are any so long that your audience could get lost in them?
■ Are sentences with blended quotations (that is, quotations that are inte¬
grated into the syntax of the sentence instead of introduced with “He
said ..or “she said .. .") complete and easy to read?
■ Are quotations shortened with ellipsis marks accurate and readable?
■ Are there several choppy sentences that can be combined?
■ Are any sentences vague?
■ Do any sentences need to be corrected for standard English grammar and
usage?
4. Think "picky." Look at your draft as your fussiest critic might.
■ Are any words not clear or not quite right for your meaning?
■ Are any words misspelled?
■ Are there any punctuation errors?
■ Is your format correct?
■ Are the pages numbered consecutively?
■ Does your paper make a good impression by being neat?
■ Is there anything else you could do to improve your draft?

Proofreading
After you piepare a final draft, check again for correct grammar and punctu¬
ation. Proofread carefully for omitted words or punctuation marks. Run your
spelling checker program, but be aware of its limitations. Proofread carefully
for the kinds of errors the computer can't catch.

Student Essay
The following essay shows how one student responded to the assignment of
arguing a position on a significant issue.

STUDENT WRITING
Teach Them, Guide Them . . .
by Monica Ericsson

In America today, there are far more cases of murder and other violent
crimes committed by teenagers than ever before. While the overall
crime rate has dropped, the amount of juvenile offenses have in¬
creased over the past few years. We ask ourselves: What can we do in
order to stop this terrifying wave of raging teenagers? Should we pun¬
ish them? Should we punish their parents? Well, since there have
been few cases where punishments have actually turned a bad citizen
 Student Writing 529

into a good citizen, we must presume that violence cannot be treated

by more violence. We must realize that these teenagers may not—and
most often do not—have the luxury of a nice, stable family, good
friends, and a role model to show them what is right and what is
wrong. These unfortunate souls are acting to protect themselves, the
way they know how. It is up to us—the more fortunate ones—to guide
them, teach them, and give them a reason to believe in themselves.
We should grab the problem by the root, that is, deal with young
criminals after their first or second offense—not the fifth or sixth. We
need to create a program to rehabilitate first to third time juvenile of¬
fenders. This program should include education, the chance to play
sports, and, just as importantly, friendship.
The level of juvenile crimes in America today is alarmingly high.
According to Paul J. McNulty, who in 1995 wrote the article "Natural
Born Killers," even where the national rate of homicide has dropped
substantially from 1985 to 1995, homicides committed by 15- to 19-
year-old boys has jumped up 154% (84). The juvenile arrest rate for
murder has risen 93% (84). The 1995 FBI Uniform Crime Report states
that 2,269 of all murder offenders in 1995 were under eighteen years
of age (United States 233). In addition, teenagers are involved in other
violent acts: From 1985 to 1991, McNulty says, the juvenile arrest rate
for violent crimes rose 96% (84). The FBI reports that in 1995, 96,292
teenagers from 15- to 19-years of age were arrested for violent crimes
(United States 233).
In order to reduce these numbers, we should create a program
that includes education, sports, and friendship to rehabilitate first to
third time juvenile offenders in our country. To begin with, the pro¬
gram would include education. The juveniles will, just as in regular
schools, have a schedule of classes, they will be working for a grade,
and they will be required to show up on time, stay until class is over,
and do homework assignments. Now, one might wonder how this
could possibly work. Why would these teenagers follow all these
rules when they would not in regular school? The answer is simple. By
receiving more attention and positive feedback than what is possible
in regular schools, they will stay motivated to study. We all feel posi¬
tively about being praised for having done something good. It keeps
us going. Well, these troubled teenagers are not different. They are
just like you and me, only they did not have the stability they de¬
served, growing up. Furthermore, the program would include sports.
The juveniles would get an opportunity to join, for example, a basket¬
ball team, where they can get an outlet for their energy in a positive
way, enjoy themselves, and learn to interact with other teenagers
without the use of violence. The program would also include building
friendships between delinquents and nondelinquents, where the lat¬
ter, even without any kind of education in drug-abuse or violence, will
530 Chapter 12 Constructing Arguments—Writing to Establish Agreement

positively influence the teenagers with their lifestyles, listen to them

when they need someone to talk to, and care about them.
By creating this program, we will make them believe in a positive
future for themselves, hence, make them realize that committing
crimes will not be a part of a successful future. According to Ed
Earnest, author of Youth Day Treatment Program Works for Alabama, a
similar program, the Community Intensive Treatment for Youth (CITY')
Program of Alabama, where they focus on education, has already
been in effect for over a decade, and it has shown positive results: A
16-year-old juvenile was enrolled in CITY in 1988. After eight months,
he passed the GED exam. "In 1989, [he] enrolled in a state university
and earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a 3.85 grade
point average. He is [as of August 1996] working toward a second de¬
gree in engineering. In addition to these accomplishments, he has had
no encounters with the law since joining the CITY program" (70-72).
Moreover, a basketball program involving 16 neighborhood teams
in Washington, D.C. has kept a substantial number of teenagers off the
streets, and taught them to interact with each other in a nonviolent
manner, according to Avis Thomas-Lester, a staff-writer for the Wash¬
ington Post and author of Basketball Program on the Rebound.
Thomas-Lester quotes one of the participants who was at risk of be¬
coming a juvenile, 17-year-old Carey Coates: "Coming to the game
really helped keep me off the street" (B, 6:1). Also quoted is Inspec¬
tor Winston Robinson, police commander in the 7th Police District: "It
gives them a chance to meet each other and challenge each other in a
team sport and not in a violent way" (B, 6:1). Officer James McNeill,
also of the 7th District, is a certified referee who volunteers to keep
this possible. He states that the teenagers have no problems with the
prohibition of swearing, fighting or arguing with the decisions made
by the referees. As a matter of fact, there are only positive attitudes
toward the rule (B, 6:1).
Furthermore, research done by Public/Private Ventures, according
to John J. Dilulio, Jr. author of How to Defuse the Youth Crime Bomb,
reveals that "Delinquents that had friendships with nondelinquents
were 46 percent less likely than a comparison group to initiate drug
use, 27 percent less likely to start drinking, one third less likely to
commit assaults, and half as likely to be [absent] from school" (23).
One of the most important factors that would make this proposal
possible is the fact that the cost for this kind of program is much
lower than the cost for a juvenile institution. According to Earnest
"The cost per person per day for the 240 CITY program slots in the
eight program locations [in the state of Alabama] is $43.83, while the
cost per bed per day in the juvenile institution is estimated to be
more than $120" (141).
Given that the three separate approaches to deal with juvenile of¬
fenders that have been illustrated in this proposal (education, sports,
 Student Writing 531

and friendships), have all had positive results, there is no reason why
combining them into one program should not work. We all need to
understand why the young criminal offenders think the way they do.
We need to get close to them, show them that we care, and make
them believe in a future for themselves. By creating this program, we
would plug in those empty holes of education, sports, and friend¬
ships, which is what these teenagers need to develop in the right di¬
rection. By putting this in effect at an early stage, we will teach them
how to interact with other people without the use of violence. As a
result, we have created a better future for these unfortunate, mis¬
guided young people—and for us, who are at the receiving end of the
youth crime wave.

Works Cited
Dilulio, Jr., John J. "How to Defuse the Youth Crime Bomb." Weekly Standard
10 March 1997: 20-23.
Earnest, Ed. "Youth Day Treatment Program Works for Alabama." Corrections
Today Aug. 1996: 70-73+.
McNulty, Paul J. "Natural Born Killers." Police Review Winter 1995: 84-87.
Thomas-Lester, Avis. "Basketball Program on the Rebound." Washington Post
14 June 1996: B, 6:1.
United States Department of Justice. "The FBI Uniform Crime Reports."
Crime in the United States. Oct. 1995.
 ’

'•

..

■
Text Credits
Chapter 2: Page 35: From The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X with the
assistance of Alex Haley. Copyright © 1964 by Alex Haley and Malcolm X. Copyright
© 1965 by Alex Haley and Betty Shabazz. Reprinted by permission of Random House,
Inc.,- page 37: Excerpt from An American Childhood by Annie Dillard. Copyright ©
1987 by Annie Dillard. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.,- page
39: N. Scott Momaday, "The End of My Childhood” from Names: A Memoir, Harper &
Row, 1976. © N. Scott Momaday. Reprinted with permission of the author,- page 41:
“Open Admissions and the Inward I" by Peter J. Rondinone. Reprinted by permission
of the author.

Chapter 3: Page 68: Excerpt from Pizza Tiger by Tom Monaghan with Robert Ander¬
son, pp. 241-243,1986, Random House. Reprinted by permission of Domino’s Pizza,
Inc.,- page 70: "Perfecting Our Strategy" by Pauli Murray from Song in a Weary Throat:
An American Pilgrimage. Reprinted by permission of Charlotte Sheedy Literary
Agency,- page 72: Reprinted by permission of Open Court Publishing Company, a di¬
vision of Cams Publishing Company, Peru, IL from Unended Quest by Karl Popper,-
page 76: “Original Spin," by Lesley Dormen and Peter Edidin, Psychology Today
July/August 1989. Reprinted with permission from Psychology Today Magazine.
Copyright © 1989 (Sussex Publishers, Inc.).

Chapter 4: Page 96: Reprinted by permission of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of

Penguin Putnam Inc. from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. © 1989 by Amy Tan,- page
109: From: The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Latham, © 1944
by Robert Frost. Copyright 1916,1969 by Henry Holt & Company. Reprinted by per¬
mission of Henry Holt and Company, Inc.; page 113: Donald M. Murray, "The Maker’s
Eye" Revising Your Own Manuscripts." Reprinted by permission of the author,- page
116: William Zinsser, "Writing with a Word Processor" excerpted from "The Act of
Writing: One Man’s Method” from Writing with a Word Processor, Harper & Row,
1983. Copyright© 1983 by William K. Zinsser. Reprinted by permission of the author-
page 122: “Howto Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words" from Understanding English
by Paul Roberts. Copyright © 1958 by Paul Roberts. Reprinted by permission of Ad¬
dison Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.

Chapter 5: Page 158: From Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least
Heat Moon. Copyright © 1982 by William Least Heat Moon. By permission of Little,
Brown and Company,- page 166: "An Account of Avianca Flight 52," The New York
Times, January 30, 1990. Copyright © 1990 by The New York Times. Reprinted by
permission; page 170: "I Have a Dream," by Martin Luther King, Jr. Copyright 1963 by
Martin Luther King, Jr., copyright renewed 1991 by Coretta Scott King,- page 179:
"Sex, Lies and Conversation," by Deborah Tannen, The Washington Post, June 24,
533
534 Credits

1990, copyright Deborah Tannen. Reprinted by permission. The material in this arti¬
cle is based in part on the author's book You Just Don't Understand (Ballantine,
1990); page 186: "Separation Anxiety" from The New York Times, January 19,1996.
Copyright © 1996 by The New York Times. Reprinted by permission; page 190: "On
Racist Speech," by Charles R. Lawrence III, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Oc¬
tober 25, 1989. Charles Lawrence teaches constitutional law at the Georgetown Uni¬
versity Law Center. He is co-author of Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory,
Assaultive Speech and the First Amendment; and We Won’t Go Back: Making The
Case For Affirmative Action;■ page 194: "Free Speech on the Campus," by Nat
Hentoff, The Progressive, May 1989. Nat Hentoff—columnist for The Washington
Post and Village Voice. Reprinted by permission of the author; page 204: "Equal to
a Pebble by Roberto Obregon from Word Up! Hope for Youth Poetry. Reprinted by
permission of El Centro De La Raza, Seattle, WA.

Chapter 6: Page 214: Excerpt from The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Moma-
day, University of New Mexico Press. Copyright © 1969. Reprinted by permission of
the University of New Mexico Press; page 218: "Back, But Not Home," by Maria Mu¬
niz, The New York Times, July 13,1979. Copyright © 1979 by The New York Times.
Reprinted by permission,- page 222: "We Are Breaking the Silence About Death," by
Daniel Goleman from Psychology Today, September 1976. Reprinted with permis¬
sion from Psychology Today Magazine. Copyright © 1976 (Sussex Publishers, Inc.).
Chapter 7: Page 242: First three paragraphs on the assassination of Malcolm X, The
New York Times, February 22, 1965. Copyright © 1965 by The New York Times
Reprinted by permission,- page 242: "Death of Malcolm X," Life, March 5, 1965. Life
Magazine/Copyright Time Inc. Reprinted with permission,- page 243: Excerpt from
"I Saw Malcolm Die," New York Post, February 22, 1965. Reprinted with permis¬
sion from the New York Post. 1965 Copyright, NYP Holdings, Inc. Paragraph on the
assassination of Malcolm X, Associated Press, February 22, 1965. Reprinted by per¬
mission of the Associated Press,- page 244: Excerpt from the Amsterdam News
February 27,1965. Reprinted by permission of New York Amsterdam News,- page 245:
Accounts of Events at Tiananmen Square, 1989, The New York Times, June 4, 1989.
Copyright © 1989 by The New York Times. Reprinted by permission,- page 263:
Excerpts from Anne Wilson Schaef, Women’s Reality: An Emerging Female System
in a White Male Society. Copyright © 1981 by Anne Wilson Schaef. Reprinted
by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.; page 237 © John Jonik from
cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved, page 266: From America Revised by Frances
Fitzgerald. Copyright © 1979 by Frances Fitzgerald. By permission of Little, Brown
and Company.

Chapter 8: Page 293: "Holy Water" from The White Album by Joan Didion. Copy¬
right © 1979 by Joan Didion. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, Inc.
Last stanza of California Winter," pp. 262-3 of Collected Poems 1940-1978
Random House 1978. © 1964, 1987 Karl Shapiro by arrangement with Wiesner &
Wiesner, Inc.; Page 298: Reprinted courtesy of Sports Illustrated September 18
1995.Copyright © 1995, Time, Inc. "The Last Days of Florida Bay" by Carl Hiasson All
Rights reserved,- page 299: Coastal Alert by Dwight Holing is published by Island
Press, Washington, D.C. Reprinted by permission,- page 302: Excerpts from This Land
 Credits 535

isYourLand by John Naarand Alex J. Naar. Copyright© 1993 by John Naarand Alex
J. Naar. Illustrations copyright © 1993 by Alex J. Naar. Reprinted by permission of
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
•

Chapter 9: Page 333: "Prologue" reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster
from Femininity by Susan Brownmiller. Copyright © 1993 by Susan Brownmiller,- page
337: Michael Norman, "Standing His Ground," New York Times Magazine, April 1,1984.
Copyright © 1984 by The New York Times. Reprinted by permission,- page 340: Ain’t
I a Woman? By Sojourner Truth; page 341: Richard Cohen," Men and Their Hidden Feel¬
ings." © 1983, Washington Post Writer’s Group. Reprinted with permission,- page 343:
Carol Tavris, "How Friendship was ‘Feminized,’" The New York Times, May 28,1997.
Copyright © 1997 by the New York Times. Reprinted with permission,- page 350: Ways
ofBeins Religious: Readinss fora New Approach to Religion by Streng, Frederick J.,
© 1973. Reprinted by permission of Prentice-Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ,- page
355: Jo Goodwin Parker, "What is Poverty?" from America’s Other Children, George
Henderson, ed., 1971, University of Oklahoma Press. Reprinted by permission.

Chapter 10: Page 374: "Brother, Don’t Spare a Dime”, Newsweek, by Christopher
Await, October 21,1991. page 376: From Rachel and Her Children by Jonathan Ko-
zol. Copyright © 1988 by Jonathan Kozol. Reprinted by permission of Crown Pub¬
lishers, lnc; page 385: Is the Earth Round or Flat? by Alvin Lightman,- page 391: Life
According to TV by Harry Walters, from Newsweek, December 6,1982, Newsweek,
Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission,- page 396: "False Truth and the Fu¬
ture of the World” reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster from Tainted
Truth by Cynthia Crossen. Copyright © 1994 by Cynthia Crossen,- page 412.- "Evolu¬
tion as Fact and Theory” by Stephen Jay Gould, Discover magazine, 1981. Reprinted
by permission of the author.

Chapter 11: Page 452: Young Hate by David Shenk. David Shenk (dshenk@big-
foot.com) is a writer living in Brooklyn. This article originally appeared in the Febru¬
ary 1990 issue of CV MAGAZINE,- page 459: "When Is It Rape?" by Nancy Gibbs from
Time, June 3,1991. © 1991 Time Inc. Reprinted by permission.

Chapter 12: Page 487: From Homage to Daniel Shays by Gore Vidal. Copyright ©
1970 by Gore Vidal. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.,- page 488:
"The Case for Slavery,” by A.M. Rosenthal, The New York Times, September 26,1989.
Copyright © 1989 by The New York Times. Reprinted by permission,- page 495: “For
a National Effort to Develop a Vaccine to Counteract Aids," by Robert E. Pollack, The
New York Times, November 27,1985 by The New York Times. Reprinted by permis¬
sion,- page 497: Charles Krauthammer, "Why an Aids Vaccine?" The Washington Post,
May 30, © 1997, Washington Post Writers Group. Reprinted by permission.

Illustration Credits
Pages 14,24,61,93,157,209,273,287,389,442,523: Illustrations by Warren Gebert.
 *

* ■ ■ K ' , '•

'

. . ..

'

1
INDEX

"Acquired Knowledge" (anonymous), truth of reasons, 492

250-251 validity, 492-493
Active thinking and writing, 22-26 forms of
Adams, John, quoted, 409 deductive, 499-503, 521-522
Ad hominem argument, 513-514 inductive, 493-494,504-507
Affirming the antecedent, 501 as inferences, 490—492
Ain't I a Woman? (Sojourner Truth), 340 invalid, 493
Air bag issue, 32 recognizing, 483-490
Allen, Jay T., 350-354 cue words for, 485-486
"Allesandros, The" (Kozol), 376-380 on significant issue (writing project),
Alternatives, in problem solving, 431, 524- 531
433,441^47 thinking critically about, 481-483
Ambiguous word, 165 and Thinking—Writing Model, 480,
American College Handbook, The 525- 526
(quoted), 291 thoughtful, 522-523
America Revised (FitzGerald), 266-269 valid, 492-493
Amsterdam News, on Malcolm X assas¬ see also Reasoning
sination, 244 Aristotle, 480,503
Analogical relationships, 272-276 Assassination of Malcolm X, five ac¬
Analogy, 168, 273 counts of (thinking—writing ac¬
Analysis, questions of, 15-16 tivity), 241-245
Analytical reading, 4 Associated Press, on Malcolm X assas¬
Anderson, Robert, 68-70 sination, 243-244
Appeal to authority, 511-512 Audience
Appeal to fear, 513 and classical rhetoric, 480
Appeal to ignorance, 513 and perspective-taking, 29
Appeal to personal attack (ad in Thinking—Writing Model, 10-11
hominem), 513-514 and analysis of beliefs, 424
Appeal to pity, 512 and analysis of decision, 133-
Application, questions of, 16 134
Argument(s), 479-481,484 and argument, 525
analyzing of (thinking—writing ac¬ and causal relationships, 312
tivity), 495-99 and collaborating, 19
evaluation of, 492 and concept definition, 361
soundness, 494-495 and context, 9

537
538 Index

Audience (cont.) Biased sample, 506

and creative vision, 84-85 Billington, James, 503
and experience concerning social Black-or-white fallacy, 510
issue, 229 Block way of organization, 271-272
and formative experience, 47-48 Blue Highways (Moon), 158-160
and language experience, 199 Brainstorming, 13, 56, 68, 442M43
and perspectives, 275-276 Brother, Don't Spare a Dime (Await),
and problem solving, 469 374-376
Augustine, St., 307 Brownmiller, Susan, 333-336
Autobiography of Malcolm X, 35-37 Burton, Elmon L. IV, 318-320
Avianca Flight 52, crash of, 166-167
Await, Christopher, 374-376 "Case for Slavery, The" (Rosenthal),
488-490
Back, But Not Home (Muniz), 218-220 Categories, 346-347. See also Classify¬
Bald Eagle and DDT, The" (Doherty), ing
291 Causal analysis, 285, 310
Bankhead, Tallulah, quoted, 273 Causal chains, 286-288
Baron, Robert, 503 Causal claims, 309
Bartlett, Joshua, 475M78 Causal fallacies, 306-310
Bateman, John, 391 Causal reasoning, 504-505
Battle of Lexington, 390-391 Causal relationships, 284—285
Belief(s), 371-372
analysis of (writing project), 312-320
analyzing influences on (writing thinking critically about, 285-306
project), 423-429
writing thoughtfully about, 310-311
based on indirect experience, Causal statement, 285
380-385
Causal thinking patterns, 154,284-285
different perspectives on, 29-34 Cause, 284-285
experiences that affected (readings), contributory, 288-289
35-46 immediate, 292
experiences that affected (writing interactive, 289-292
project), 47-53
misidentification of, 307-308
falsifiable, 388-392 questionable, 307
kinds of remote, 292
conclusions, 371,372,484 sufficient, 292
evaluations, 371,372 (see also Eval¬ Chains, causal, 286-288
uation) Chan, Tze Wing, 367
interpretations, 371, 372 (see also "Changed Belief, A" (Kiragu), 51-52
Interpreting) Chen, Jesse, 280-281
predictions, 371,372 (see also Pre¬ Chinese government, on Tiananmen
diction)
Square events, 248-249
and knowledge, 385-388 Chronological thinking patterns, 154,
thinking and writing critically 207, 217-220
about, 370-371 Churchill, Winston, on Battle of Lex¬
in writings, 421-427 ington, 390-391
writing thoughtfully about, 403 Claim, 484
factual reporting, 405, 406-407, Classifying, 322,325-327,345-347
420-421 Clause, 151
inferring, 404-405,407-418, dependent, 151-152
420-421
independent, 151-152
judging, 404,405,418-421 Coastal Alert (Holing), 299-302
kinds of beliefs to be distin¬ Cohen, Jon, 139-140
guished, 420M21
Cohen, Richard, 341-342
"Belief That I Feel Strongly About, A" Collaborating
(Heredia), 30-31
in decisions about revision. 111
Beston, Henry, quoted, 189
in writing process, 19
 Index 539

College, thinking and writing in, 2-6 analysis of (writing project), 133-140
Columbus' voyage, advisory commit¬ application of (readings), 96-110
tee on value of, 410 arguments for, 490-491
Communicating, 10,19 benefit of organized method in, 109
and crash of Avianca Flight 52, in revising drafts, 110-112
166-167 in revising drafts (readings), 113-132
Comparative relationships or thinking Declaration of Independence, The,
patterns, 154, 270-272 514-518,521
Concepts, 322-324 Declaration of Sentiments and Resolu¬
analyzing, 332 tions, Seneca Falls (Stanton),
application of, 330-347 518-521
defining of, 321-322, 326,347-360 Deductive argument or reasoning, 493,
defining of (writing project), 361-368 499-503
forming of, 327-330 evaluation of (thinking—writing ac¬
importance of, 324-325 tivity), 503
requirements of, 330-331 in writing, 521
structure of, 325-327 Deductive validity, 493. See also Valid¬
thinking critically about, 321-325 ity
Conclusion (belief), 371,372,484 Definition, 321-322,347-360
Conclusion to essay, 58-59 extended, 359
Condition, necessary, 292 properties in, 326
Confessions of St. Augustine, 307 Denby, David, 161
Conflicts, between values, 445 Deng Xiaoping, on Tiananmen Square
Constraints, in problem solving, events, 246-247
437-438 Denny, Jim, 410
Context Denying the consequent, 501-502
of perception, 237 Descriptions, objective vs. subjective,
of writing, 9 213
Contributory causes, 288-289 Details, specific, 57-58
Crash of Avianca Flight 52,166-167 Dialects, 176-178
Creative environment, 67-68 Dickens, Charles, 348
Creative process, 65-66 Didion, Joan, 293-297
Creative thinking, see Thinking cre¬ "Different Perspectives" (Chen),
atively 280-281
Creative writing. See Writing creatively Dillard, Annie, 37-39
Creativity, 64 "Discovering Creativity By Not Look¬
dialogue on, 146 ing For It" (Lange), 88-89
examining (readings), 68-83 Disjunctive syllogism, 502
in imagining life (writing project), Documentation format, 228
84-89 Doherty, Jim, 291
"Crime of Punishment, The" (Men- Doig, Ivan, 221
ninger), 503 Dormen, Lesley, 76-83
Critical reading, 4 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 411
Critical thinking, see Thinking critically Drafting, 17-18
"Critical Thinking about Uncritical creative thinking in, 56-57
Drinking" (Bartlett), 475-478 in writing process, 17-18,50, 87,136,
Criticism, 22 200-201, 231, 278, 315,364,426,
Crossen, Cynthia, 396-402 471^72,527
"Crows at the Mall" (Hoang), 317-318 Drafts, revision of. See Revision
"Drugs" (Vidal), 487-490
"Dealing with Sex Offenders" (Lange),
428-429 Earth as round vs. flat, 27-28,385-387
"Deciding What to Do About My Eastman, Charles Alexander, 258-262
Hearing Problem" (Le), 138-139 Eating Your Way Through Life (Wurt-
Decision making, 90,91-95 man), 291-292
540 Index

Edidin, Peter, 76-83 causal, 306-310

Editing, 18,202 false dilemma, 510-511
Effects, 284, 285 hasty generalization, 511
Either/or fallacy, 509 of relevance, 511
Emotive language, 186-197 appeal to authority, 511-512
Empirical generalization, 505-508 appeal to fear, 513
generalizing and interpreting in, 509 appeal to ignorance, 513
End of My Childhood" (Momoday), appeal to personal attack (ad
39-40 hominem), 513-514
Endorsement, 371 appeal to pity, 512
reliability of, 383 sweeping generalization, 510
English, as living language, 143 False dilemma, 510-511
Enthemymes, 501,522 False Truth and the Future of the World
Environment, creative, 67-68 (Crossen), 396402
"Equal to a Pebble" (Obregon), 204 Falsifiable beliefs, 389-390
Ericsson, Monica, 528-529 Feedback, eliciting of, 448
Errors, 11
Feelings, and perception, 237,239,
"Ethnic cleansing," 185 383
Ethos, 480
Femininity (Browruniller), 333-336
Euphemistic language, 184-186 Figurative language, 167-169
Evaluation, 371,372 "Final solution," 185
of arguments, 492-495 FitzGerald, Frances, 266-269
soundness, 494-495 Flexible thinking, 31
truth of reasons, 492 Focus
validity, 492-494 in examinations, 10
of deductive arguments (thinking— in writing process, 17, 49, 86-87,135,
writing activity), 503 200, 230,277,314,363,425,471,
of emotive language (thinking— 526
writing activity), 189 For a National Effort to Develop a Vaccine
of inductive arguments, 504-507 to Counteract AIDS (Pollack),
of information, 381-385 495497
in judgments, 418 Forster, E. M., quoted, 2
in problem solving, 433,443-446 Franklin, Ben
448
as author, 254-258, 272
questions of, 16 quoted, 9
Evidence, 484
Free Speech on the Campus (Hentoff),
supporting diverse perspectives, 194-197
32-34 Freewriting, 14-15
Evolution 4s Fact and Theory (Gould) Frost, Robert, 109-110
412448
Examples, specific, 57-58
Gender differences in language
Expectations, and perception, 383 178-184 ' "
Experience indirect, 380-385 Generalization
William James on, 207 empirical, 505-508
and perceiving, 206 sweeping, 509-510
see also Perceiving and perception Generalizing, 327, 328, 329, 509
Expert source, 383
General rule, application of, 500
Explanation, arguments for, 491 Generating ideas, 13-16
Extended definition, 359 creative thinking in, 56
Eyewitness accounts, 383 for examinations, 10
follow-through on, 66
Fact, questions of, 15,439
in writing process, 13, 49, 86,
Factual information, 404,406407,
134-135,200, 230, 276-277,
420421
313-314, 362-363,425,470471,
Fallacies, 308, 508-509 526
 Index 541

"Genius" (Chan), 367-368 euphemistic language, 184-186

Gibbs, Nancy, 459^167 Information
Gill, Eric, quoted, 60 evaluating of, 381-385
Goleman, Daniel, 222-227 reporting of, 404,406-407,420-421
Gould, Stephen Jay, 412—418 Informed intuitions, 92
Grammar, 11,151 Interactive causes, 289-292
"Great Mystery, The" (Eastman), Interests, and perception, 383
259-263 Interpreting (interpretation), 371, 372
"Gun Within, The" (Billington), 503 in concept formation, 327, 328, 329,
509
Haley, Alex, 35-37 of perceptions, 239-240
"Handed My Own Life" (Dillard), questions of, 15
37-39 of sensations, 209-211
Han Xu, on Tiananmen Square events, Introductions, 58-59
249 Intuitions, informed, 92
Harper's Weekly (1902), on motor cars, Invisible structure, 50
410 Is the Earth Round or Flat? (Lightman),
Hasty generalization, 509 387-389
Hentoff, Nat, 194-197
Heraclitus, quoted, 65 James, William, 207
Herbert, Bob, 186 Jargon, 176
Heredia, Ola via, 30-31 Journalists, five questions of, 163
Herodotus, 142 Joy Luck Club, The (Tan), 96-109
Hiaasen, Carl, 298-299 Judging, 404,405,418-421
Hill, Nancy K., 274 Judgment, Voice of, 66-67
Hitler, Adolf, quoted, 511
Hoang, Ly True, 317-318 Kamara, Mary, 366-367
Holing, Dwight, 299-302 Kelly, James R., 420
Holmes, Sherlock, 411 Kennedy, John F., quoted, 189
Holy Water (Didion), 293-297 Kennedy, Robert F., quoted, 437
Hoose, Shoshana, 175 Key questions, 439
How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred King, Martin Luther, Jr., 170-173
Words (Robert), 122-132 Kiragu, Agnes, 51-52
Knowledge
Ideas, generating. See Generating ideas and belief, 385-388
Ideas, incubation of, 66 construction of from differing
Ideas, organizing. See Organizing ideas accounts (thinking—writing activ¬
"I Have a Dream" (King), 170-173 ity), 390-391
Immediate cause, 292 and truth, 387-390
"In Defense of Teaching Racism, Sex¬ Kozol, Jonathan, 376-380
ism, and Fascism" (Baron), 503 Krauthammer, Charles, 495-496
Independence and the Inward "I" (Rondi- Ku Klux Klan circular, quoted, 189
none), 40-46
Independent thinking, 26-29 Lange, Jessie, 88-89, 202-203,428-
Inductive reasoning and argument, 429
493-494, 504-505 Langer, Susanne K., quoted, 2
analyzing of (thinking—writing ac¬ Language, 141,145
tivity), 507-508 ambiguous, 165
evaluating of, 493-494 development of, 142-144
in writing, 521-522 effective use of, 150
Inferring and inferences, 404-405, experience with (writing project),
408^18,420-421 198-204
arguments as, 490-499 figurative, 167-169
Influencing as use of language, 184 gender differences in, 178-184
emotive language, 186-197 in social contexts, 174-178
542 Index

Language (cont.) Monaghan, Tom, 68-70

symbolic nature of, 144-150 "Money Can't Do It" (Persch), 52-53
use of to clarify thinking, 160-165 Moods, and perceptions, 237
use of to influence, 184-197 Moon, William Least Heat, 158-160
vague, 161-164 Muller, Gilbert, 291
Language styles, 174-175,198 Muniz, Maria, 218-220
"Last Days of Florida Bay, The" (Hiaa- Murray, Donald M., 113-116
son), 300-301 Murray, Pauli, 70-71
Lawrence, Charles R. IE, 190-194 Myers, Rochelle, 66
Le, Bao-Toan, 138-139
Lenses, world viewed through, Naar, Alex ]., 302-306
235-236,239,383 Naar, Jon, 302-306
Lexington, Battle of, 390-391 Narrative, 217-218
Life According to TV (Waters), 391-396 analysis of (reading), 218-220
Life magazine, on Malcolm X assassi¬ as illuminating social issue (writing
nation, 242-243 project), 228-234
Lightman, Alvin, 385-387 Necessary condition, 292
"Limits of Reason, The" (Kelly), 420 New York Post, on Malcolm X assassi¬
Li Peng, on Tiananmen Square events, nation, 243
248 New York Times, The
Living creatively, 60-65 on Malcolm X assassination, 242
Li Zhiyun, on Tiananmen Square on Tiananmen Square events,
events, 248 247-248,249
Lloyd, Charles L., 350-354 Norman, Michael, 337-339
Logical thinking, 480. See also Argu¬
ment; Reasoning Objective descriptions, 213
Logos, 480 Obregon, Roberto, 204
On Racist Speech (Lawrence), 190-194
Maker's Eye: Revising Your Own Manu¬ Organizational patterns
scripts, The (Murray), 113-116 block, 271-272
Making decisions, see Decision making point-by-point, 272
Malcolm X, Autobiography of 35-37 Organizing ideas, 17,49-50
Malcolm X's assassination, five ac¬ and audience, 11
counts of (thinking— writing ac¬ for examination, 10
tivity), 241-245
in writing process, 17,49-50, 87,135,
Meaning of word, 145-146
200,230,277-278,314-315,
and definition, 321-322 363-364,426,471,526
perceptual, 147-148
Organizing perceptions, 238-239
pragmatic, 149-150
Organizing sensations, 209-211
semantic, 147
Original Spin (Dormen and Edidin),
sentence structure to support, 76-83
150-158 Orwell, George, 161,185
syntactic, 148-149 Osborn, Alex, 442
Media, and truth, 392-397
Others' work, reading and analyzing,
Memory experiment, 383 158-160
Mencken, H. L., 451
Menninger, Karl, 503
Parker, Jo Goodwin, 355-358
Men and Their Hidden Feelings (Cohen) Pathos, 480
341-342
Perceiving and perception, 206, 208
Metaphors, 168,169-170, 273
differences among people in,
Miller, Henry, quoted, 150 211-212,235-236
Miller, Rissa, 281-283
interpreting of, 239-240
Mind maps, 13-14
interpreting of (thinking— writing
Misidentification of the cause, 307-308 activity), 211-212
Momoday, N. Scott, 39-40, 214-217 organizing of, 238-239
 Index 543

reliability of, 383-384 method of, 432—434,435-436

selection in, 209-211, 236-238 accepting the problem, 437-438
of sequences, 217-227 definition of the problem, 433,
shaping and changing, 249 4384141
thinking critically about, 207-212, consideration of alternatives, 433,
235-270 441—443
writing thoughtfully about, 212-217 evaluating advantages and disad¬
Perceptual meaning, 147-148 vantages, 433,443-445
Perfecting Our Strategy (Murray), 70-71 solution, 433—434,445-447
Persch, Michael, 52-53 review of solution, 434, 447—450
Perspective for social problems, 451-467
and circumstances, 443 steps in writing on, 430—431
critically evaluating (writing pro¬ and thinking, 431
ject), 275-283 thinking critically about, 431-432,
different (thinking—writing activ¬ 435-436
ity), 34 writing thoughtfully about, 467—468
and problem solving, 443, 448 "Problem Solving Made Easy" (Rig-
and stereotypes, 254 gle), 473—474
of writer, 11 Process thinking patterns, 154, 207,
writing thoughtfully about, 270-274 220-227
Perspective-taking, 29-32 Proofreading
and problem solving, 440 in revision process, 18
and supporting reasons or evidence, in writing process, 51, 88,137, 202,
32-34 232,316,366,428,473, 527
Persuasion, arguments for, 491 Properties, 326,327
Peter, Laurence J., 221 and definition, 348
Philosophy, 21 Punctuation, 11
forming concept of, 327-328 Purpose
"Pizza: Fast Food, Not Junk Food" and classical rhetoric, 480
(Salamone), 420 in Thinking—Writing Model, 10
Pizza Tiger (Monaghan), 68-70 and analysis of beliefs, 423-424
Point-by-point organization, 272 and analysis of decision, 133
Poisoning the well, 514 and argument, 525
Political speech and writing, Orwell and causal relationships, 312
on, 185 and concept definition, 361
Politics (Aristotle), quote from, 503 and context, 9
Pollack, Robert E., 495-497 and creative vision, 84
Popper, Karl, 72-76 and experience concerning social
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy, 308 issue, 229
Post-It Notes, and creative process, 66 and formative experience, 47
"Power of Language, The" (Lange), and language of experience, 199
202-203 and perspectives, 275
Pragmatic meaning, 149-150 and problem solving, 469
Predicate, 151,152,153
Prediction(s), 373, 374,411 Questionable cause, 307
arguments for, 491 Questions
of election results, 505 categories of, 15-16
Presley, Elvis, firing of, 410 for clarifying vague language, 163
Priorities, 445 in drafting, 18
Problem solving, 430 in generating ideas, 15,49
analysis of problem (thinking— about problem situations, 441
writing activity), 449-450 in revising, 50, 88,136-137, 201-202,
analysis of problem (writing pro¬ 231-232, 278-279,315-316,
ject), 469-478 365-366,426—427, 472-473,
and complex problems, 434-435 527-528
544 Index

Racist speech, thinking critically about Roberts, Paul, 122-132

(thinking—writing activity), 190 Rondinone, Peter J., 40-46
Random selection, 506 Rosenthal, A. M., 488-490
Ray, Michael, 66 Rule, application of, 500
Reading, 3—4 Russell, Bertrand, 188
"Real Teacher, The" (Kamara), 366-367
Reasoning, 484 Salamone, Louis Philip, 422
causal, 504-505 Sample, in inductive arguments,
deductive, 499-503, 521-522 505-507
fallacies in, 306-310,508-514 "Scaling the Fleights: The Teacher as
inductive, 493-494,504-508,521-522 Mountaineer" (Hill), 274
see also Argument Schaef, Anne Wilson, 263-267
Reasons, 484
Scientific method, and causal reason¬
supporting diverse perspectives, ing, 504-505
32-34 Secretariat (race horse), classification
truth of, 492 of, 346
Recursive nature of writing process, 9, Selecting, of sensations, 209-211
12, 111 Selectivity in perception, 236-238
"Red Candle, The" (Tan), 96-109 Semantic meaning, 147
Referents, 326, 327 Sensations, selecting, organizing and
Reflecting, 5-6
interpreting of, 209-211
Relationships Sensory perception, see Perceiving and
chronological, 154,207,217-220 perception
process, 154,207,220-227 Sentences
see also Thinking patterns coordinate and subordinate, 153-155
Relativism, 388 simple, 152-153
Relevance, fallacies of, 511 Sentence structure, in support of
appeal to authority, 511-512 meaning, 150-158
appeal to fear, 513
"Separation Anxiety" (Herbert), 186
appeal to ignorance, 513 Sex, Lies and Conversation (Tannen),
appeal to personal attack (ad 179-184
hominem), 513-514
Shakespeare, William, quoted, 150,
appeal to pity, 512 168,169
Reliability, of information source, Shaughnessey, Mina, 18
382-384 Shenk, David, 452-459
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North Showing vs. telling, 57
America (Franklin), 254-258 Silko, Leslie Marmon, quoted, 2
Remote cause, 292 Similes, 168,169-170,273
Reports of factual information, 404, Slang, 175-176
406-407,420-421 Slippery slope, 308
Researching, 56
Social contexts, language in, 174-178
Responsibility, accepting, 23,439
Solving problems, see Problem solving
Revision, 18-19 Sophocles, quoted, 9
decision making on, 110-112 Soul of the Indian, The (Eastman),
readings on, 113-124 258-262
and thinking critically, 90 Sound argument, 494-495
in writing process, 18-19, 50, 87-88, Sounds, 145
136-137, 201-202,231-232, Sources of information
278-279, 315-316,364-366, acknowledging, 56
426-427, 472-473, 527-529 evaluating, 382-384
Rhetoric, 21, 480-481
"Space Problem, A" (Cohen), 139-140
and Aristotle, 480 Spelling, 11
Riggle, Jana, 473-474
Standard American English (SAE), 175
"Road Not Taken, The" (Frost), Standing His Ground (Norman),
109-110 337-339
 Index 545

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 518-521 about beliefs, 370-371

Steinberg, Samuel, 390 about causal fallacies, 306-310
Stereotypes, 251-252 about causal relationships, 285-306
Strong, Frederick J., 350-354 about concepts, 321-325
Structure, invisible and visible, 49-50 as exploration and discovery, 447
Styles of language, 174-175 in finding topics, 26
Subject (of writing) integration of, 12
and classical rhetoric, 480 about perceptions, 207-212,235-270
in Thinking—Writing Model, 11 perspective-taking, 29-34,440
and analysis of beliefs, 424 and problem solving, 431—432,
and analysis of decision, 134 435-436 (see also Problem solving)
and argument, 524 and revising, 90
and causal relationships, 312-313 in Thinking—Writing Model, 9
and concept definition, 362 as vital, 19
and context, 9 Thinking independently, 26-29
and creative vision of life, 85 Thinking patterns
and experience concerning social causal, 154,286-287 (see also at
issues, 229 Causal)
and formative experience, 48 chronological, 154, 207, 217-220
and language experience, 199 classificatory, 322, 325-327, 345-347
and perspectives, 276 comparative, 154, 270-272
and problem solving, 470 definition, 324 (see also Definition)
Subject of clause, 151,152,153 process, 154, 207, 220-227
Subjective descriptions, 213 and syntactic patterns, 154-157
Sufficient cause, 292 Thinking and writing, 1
Superstition, and fallacies, 307, 308 in college, 2-6
Sweeping generalization, 510 developing insight into, 21-22
Swift, Jonathan, quoted, 273 steps to improve, 5
Syllogisms, 500 as way of living, 19-20
disjunctive, 502 Thinking—Writing Activities, 3
enthemymes, 501, 522 Thinking—Writing Model, 6-10
Symbolic nature of language, 144—150 and active, creative, critical thinking,
Syntactic meaning, 148-149 26
Syntactic patterns, and thinking pat¬ activities of writing process, 12-19
terns, 154—157 (see also Writing process)
Synthesis, questions of, 16 on analysis of beliefs, 423-424
on analysis of decision, 133-134
Tan, Amy, 96-109 and argument, 480, 525-526
Tannen, Deborah, 179-184 on causal relationships, 312-313
"Teach Them, Guide Them ..(Erics¬ on concept definition, 361-362
son), 528-531 on creative vision of life, 84-85
Telling vs. showing, 57 on experience concerning social is¬
Thesis, 17 sue, 228-229
in argument, 484 on formative experience, 47-48
Thesis statement, 11 integration of processes in, 12
Thinking, 4 on language experience, 199-202
active and passive influences on, on perspectives, 277-278
23-26 on problem solving, 469-470
using language to clarify, 160-165 see also Audience; Purpose; Subject;
Thinking creatively, 6, 59-65 Writer
integration of, 12 This House of Sky (Doig), 221
and writing, 9, 54-59 This Land Is Your Land (Naar and
Thinking critically, 5, 21, 22, 59 Naar), 302-306
as active, 22-23 Thoughtful writing, see Writing
about argument, 481-482 thoughtfully
546 Index

"Tiananmen Square Event: An Analy¬ "Why Is It So Hard for Men and

sis of Three Accounts, The" Women to Talk to Each Other?"
(Miller), 281-283 (Tannen), 179-184
Tiananmen Square events (1989) "Why" questions, 163,284-285. See also
seven accounts of (thinking— writ¬ Causal relationships
ing activity), 245-250 Wiesel, Elie, quoted, 2,47-48
students' analyses on, 280-283 Willey, Angelica, 233-234
Topics, finding, 26 Women's Reality: An Emerging Female
Topic selection, being creative in, 55-56 System in a White Male Society
Transitions, 11,272 (Schaef), 263-267
Travis, Carol, 343-344 Wood, Sylvanus, 391
Truth "Woodworking Joints," 214
and argument, 492 Words, 160
and knowledge, 387-390 meaning of, 145-150 (see also Mean¬
and media, 391-397 ing of word)
Truth, Sojourner, 340 Work of others, reading and analyzing,
Twain, Mark 158-160
as author, 240-241,271-272 "Worst case" scenario, 437
and Huck Finn on superstition, 308 Writer
quoted, 218 and classical rhetoric, 480
Two Ways of Viewing the River (Twain), in Thinking—Writing Model,
240-241 11-12
and analysis of beliefs, 426
Unended Quest (Popper), 72-76 and analysis of decision, 134
"Unfair Expectations" (Willey), and argument, 525-526
233-234 and causal relationships, 313
and concept definition, 362
Vague language, 161-164 and context, 9
Vague word, 162 and creative vision, 85
Validity, 492-494 and experience concerning social
Values, 447 issue, 229
Van Allen, James, quoted, 2 and formative experience, 48
Velcro, and creative process, 66 and language experience, 199
Vidal, Gore and perspectives, 276
as author, 487-490 and problem solving, 470
quoted, 273 Writing
Visible structure, 49-50 and beliefs, 421-422
Voice of Judgment (VOJ), 66-67 deductive and inductive reasoning
in, 521-522
Wallace, George C., quoted, 189 finding topics for, 26
Waters, Harry, 391-396 to propose solutions to problems,
"Way to Rainy Mountain, The" (Mo- 430-431
maday), 214-217 see also Thinking and writing; Think¬
We Are Breaking the Silence About Death ing—Writing Model
(Goleman), 222-227 Writing creatively, 54-59
Western Union, telephone rejected by, Writing critically
410 and audience, 424
"What Caused the Flood at Yosemite about beliefs, 370-371
National Park" (Burton), 318-320 Writing process, 12-19
What Is Poverty? (Parker), 355-358 on analysis of beliefs, 425-428
What Is Religion? (Strong, Lloyd, and and analysis of decision, 134-137
Allen), 350-354 on argument, 525-527
When Is It Rape? (Gibbs), 459-467 on causal relationships, 313-316
Why an AIDS Vaccine? (Krauthammer), on concept definition, 362-366
495-496 and creative vision of life, 86-88
 Index 547

on experience concerning social is¬ to define concepts, 359-360

sue, 230-232 integration of, 12
and formative experience, 48-51 about perceptions of sequences,
and language experience, 200-202 217-227
on perspective, 276-279 about perspectives, 270-274
on problem solving, 470-473 and reasons, 32
see also Drafting; Editing; Focus; about sensory perceptions, 212-217
Generating ideas; Organizing about solving problems, 467-468
ideas; Proofreading; Revision in Thinking—Writing Model, 9
Writing Projects, 3 as vital, 19
Writing thoughtfully, 5, 22 Writing with a Word Processor (Zinsser),
as active, 23 116-122
arguments, 521-522 Wurtman, Judith, 291-292
about beliefs, 403
factual reporting, 404,406-407, Xiao Bin, on Tiananmen Square events
420^21 (two accounts), 249-250
inferring, 404-405,407-418,
420^21 Young Hate (Shenk), 452-459
judging, 404,405,418-421 Yuan Mu, on Tiananmen Square
kinds of beliefs to be distin¬ events, 249
guished, 420-421
about causal relationships, 310-311 Zinsser, William, 116-122
 ■ mm
ically lies.
of. wr
mg strat appr critical thii
—to learning reflc
lives, our society,
sors Christine McMa
guides student writers to
the first ideas they come and cons of issues
objectively, to develop an interest in
mm
sions, and to argue persuasively. Thoughtful Writ-
ing encourages students to be
their thinking and writing.

. is a professor of Humanities at LaGuardia

of New York, and Director of the New York
for Critical Thinking & Language Learning. A nationally ree¬
led leader in the area of intellectual development, he is the
luthor of Thinking Critically, as well as The Thinker's rnL
. Thinking Critically, and the trade book. The Thinker's
nume
tops throughout the country.

■■■■■
tTisit the Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing web site at 11 M
http://www.hmco.com/coilege (Select English; select Critical Thinking, Thoughtful
Writing). The authors of this book welcome your comments via the Internet at
jcthink@aol.com
Houghton Mifflin C contacted at college_ english@l
or by letter to 222 I i, MA 02116- 3764.

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IGHTON MIFFLIN
New Ways to Know